4 ms·

What does non-profit news look like? A few rich people starting non-profit and making news might not be very trustworthy. I guess you mean a wide group of donor

What does non-profit news look like? A few rich people starting non-profit and making news might not be very trustworthy. I guess you mean a wide group of donors. But non-profits have a lot of trouble raising money without controversy. Imagine trying to solicit donations when every other story alienates half the donors. And it doesn't really answer a lot of the hard questions. Who is going to actually write the articles, what's their political angle, and what are their career objectives? And how do you handle delicate topics with evolving information in a neutral way?

ethbr0 5y ago
A better evolution would probably be similar to Spotify royalties. Create one "donations to non-profit news" bucket, that people could freely contribute to (with tax advantages, like the election fund). Then apportion that money out to all non-profit news organizations, according to some (readership) + (journalistic awards by their peers) weighting. It removes the direct connection between donor and output, which is what we seem to want in news.
xattt 5y ago
An example of non-profit news in the US is PBS Newshour and in Canada, The Agenda with Steve Paikin on TVO. Both have broadcast pieces as well as accompanying online articles.
- chmod600 5y ago
  PBS is funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which is tax money. So it's more like NPR or the BBC. Also, PBS has a variety of content and I don't think I know anyone who watches their news. Scarcely any of their content, but they have a few good things. I don't think they are taken very seriously as a news organization -- much less than NPR, for instance.
  - xattt 5y ago
    Some of it may be tax money, but some of it is donations made by individuals and organizations. The credits of PBS Newshour front-load the show with names of the contributors.
  - neltnerb 5y ago
    I'm pretty sure they've repeatedly mentioned that they're also funded by viewers like me ;-) Yes, they get government funding and have a public mission. But they also aren't entirely funded by tax dollars. I do think they have a weird bias that they are very oblivious to, but I don't think it's exactly a pro-government bias. It seems more like a don't-be-controversial bias where the goalpost for that keeps shifting.
idontwantthis 5y ago
There’s NPR/PBS and it’s fantastic.
- Frost1x 5y ago
  They need stable secure funding that's unaffected by what the publish (not the quality per see) and autonomoy. With that, you tend to get good news.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- chmod600 5y ago
  I don't think that's what the parent post had in mind. Those are more like state-sponsored news. Technically non-profit, but usually considered a different category.
JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> What does non-profit news look like? Subscriber owned, i.e. subscribing involves buying a voting share in the enterprise. Endowed. Donor-driven is just one among many non-profit models.

ethbr0 5y ago

A better evolution would probably be similar to Spotify royalties. Create one "donations to non-profit news" bucket, that people could freely contribute to (with tax advantages, like the election fund). Then apportion that money out to all non-profit news organizations, according to some (readership) + (journalistic awards by their peers) weighting. It removes the direct connection between donor and output, which is what we seem to want in news.

xattt 5y ago

An example of non-profit news in the US is PBS Newshour and in Canada, The Agenda with Steve Paikin on TVO. Both have broadcast pieces as well as accompanying online articles.

chmod600 5y ago
PBS is funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which is tax money. So it's more like NPR or the BBC. Also, PBS has a variety of content and I don't think I know anyone who watches their news. Scarcely any of their content, but they have a few good things. I don't think they are taken very seriously as a news organization -- much less than NPR, for instance.
- xattt 5y ago
  Some of it may be tax money, but some of it is donations made by individuals and organizations. The credits of PBS Newshour front-load the show with names of the contributors.
- neltnerb 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure they've repeatedly mentioned that they're also funded by viewers like me ;-) Yes, they get government funding and have a public mission. But they also aren't entirely funded by tax dollars. I do think they have a weird bias that they are very oblivious to, but I don't think it's exactly a pro-government bias. It seems more like a don't-be-controversial bias where the goalpost for that keeps shifting.

idontwantthis 5y ago

There’s NPR/PBS and it’s fantastic.

Frost1x 5y ago
They need stable secure funding that's unaffected by what the publish (not the quality per see) and autonomoy. With that, you tend to get good news.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
chmod600 5y ago
I don't think that's what the parent post had in mind. Those are more like state-sponsored news. Technically non-profit, but usually considered a different category.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago

> What does non-profit news look like? Subscriber owned, i.e. subscribing involves buying a voting share in the enterprise. Endowed. Donor-driven is just one among many non-profit models.