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Journalism and nonprofit journalism are all struggling massively and anyone prospering right now is likely at the largesse of a filthy rich donor like Bezos. Pr
by tootie 2y ago
Journalism and nonprofit journalism are all struggling massively and anyone prospering right now is likely at the largesse of a filthy rich donor like Bezos. ProPublica runs no ads, they have a donate button, but there's no way it's sufficient to cover the amount of work they do which is substantial. I'm not sure who their benefactor(s) are but they definitely have an angel. NPR and affiliates are all laying off left and right. The Intercept is on death's door. Even on the obscenely commercial side, The Messenger burned through $70M in like 9 months and couldn't survive. Old stalwarts like Newsweek are now spammy content farms.
NY Times has done an incredible job becoming a total lifestyle brand selling news, cooking, games, etc. It's a very, very difficult model to copy. Axios and Politico sell high-priced "enterprise" subscriptions to deep-pocketed niche groups. It's tumultuous to say the least.
- greenburger 2y agoYou can see details of ProPublica’s funding here: https://www.propublica.org/reports https://www.propublica.org/reports $43 million budget in 2023. Looks to me like typical American non-profit funding. Several significant donors rather than an “angel”.
- tootie 2y agoDidn't mean to imply one person funds the whole thing out of their pocket, but it's likely that the chairman, Paul Sagan, is both giving a ton and recruiting a lot of other wealthy people. Maybe a quarter or less of revenue comes from donations <$10K. That's not uncommon, but I don't think it's how most non-profits are funded. Either way, my point is that they could not sustain themselves as a for-profit business by just selling ads or subscriptions. And they are very much dependent on staying in the good graces of a small handful of people.