How to sustain journalism that rarely pays for itself

Investigative journalism is expensive to produce and rarely pays for itself. A single story can require months of reporting, cross-border collaboration, specialist expertise and legal support, with no guarantee that the revenue it generates will cover those costs. For newsrooms doing this work, financial sustainability means finding ways to sustain reporting whose public value far exceeds its commercial return.

That makes decisions about revenue especially consequential. Time spent developing a new income stream is time a small team cannot spend investigating. Yet dependence on a narrow funding base can leave a newsroom vulnerable to shifting donor priorities or pressure from advertisers. The challenge is to identify sources of income that fit an organisation’s editorial mission, make sensible use of its limited resources and protect its independence.

At IJ4EU’s recent UNCOVERED Conference in Budapest, Manon Verchot, innovation projects manager for the International Press Institute, worked with investigative journalists to explore how to make those choices. Drawing on examples from around the world, the workshop asked participants to consider what makes their journalism distinctive, what their audiences value and which revenue opportunities are worth pursuing.

The session drew on the Revenue Roadmap, a guidebook published by IPI’s media innovation team and Report for the World.

Revenue Roadmap guidebook

During the one-and-a-half-hour workshop, Verchot also challenged the assumption that editorial work has ever been entirely insulated from economic pressures.

“I think all of us can maybe relate to being told that business and editorial don’t mix,” she said. “But when I started working in a newsroom, I realised that it’s not as rosy a picture, actually.”

Whether an organisation is non-profit or for-profit, the way a newsroom makes money influences the work it does. Advertisers can put pressure on newsrooms to take down stories, and donors can pressure newsrooms to cover only topics that they’re willing to fund.

The extent to which a newsroom can push back on those pressures depends in part on whether it has alternative revenue streams to fall back on if it loses the support of an advertiser or donor. That’s why it’s important for newsrooms to think about diversifying revenue streams, Verchot argued.

Here are some of the session’s key takeaways.

Let the audience be the guide

There are many different types of revenue streams, from advertising and subscriptions to events and merchandise. So it can feel a little overwhelming when a newsroom is considering where to invest its time and energy. This is where the audience can help.

Using analytics, interviews and feedback forms, newsrooms can explore why people turn to their reporting, what needs it meets and what they would be willing to support.

For example, a publication covering the stock market for financial professionals provides information its readers can use in their daily work. That practical benefit offers a clear reason to pay for a subscription. For investigative newsrooms, the relationship may be less direct: readers may value reporting because it exposes wrongdoing, scrutinises powerful institutions or serves communities that would otherwise be overlooked.

The question is how that value can translate into financial support. Some audiences may pay for access to specialist investigative coverage. Others may support a newsroom through memberships or donations precisely because they want its investigations to remain freely available. Audience research can help organisations assess which approach fits their reporting and the people they serve.

No model will work for every newsroom, and willingness to pay cannot be the sole measure of an investigation’s worth. But understanding why people value the work can help an organisation define its unique value proposition — and identify revenue opportunities that support its editorial mission.

It’s ok to pick the low-hanging fruit

Launching new revenue streams can take a lot of time and energy. That’s why an effective starting point is to look at existing assets, products and activities that could generate income.

As an example, Verchot shared how she helped FrontPage Africa, Liberia’s leading newspaper, open up new digital revenue streams using existing materials.

After reviewing FPA’s analytics, she and her team found that nearly 50% of its website traffic was coming from outside Liberia. This wasn’t surprising, as a significant portion of the population left the country during the two civil wars of 1989-1997 and 1999-2003. But it did present an opportunity.

The diaspora was clearly interested in connecting with what was happening back home, but there was no way for readers abroad to receive the newspaper — which was only printed in Monrovia, Liberia’s capital. With the help of her team, Verchot helped FPA launch a digital version of the newspaper using the PDF the newspaper was already compiling for the printers every weekday.

“The real goal is to be spending time on the journalism and not so much the revenue,” she told attendees at UNCOVERED. “But since we have to keep the lights on, we do have to spend a lot of time on revenue.”

She also pointed to Howtown, a YouTube channel that runs a monthly Science Paper Book Club for Patreon members. The journalists behind the science-based channel are already steeped in academic literature as they dig for story ideas or research the topics they cover. So the online book club requires relatively little additional effort compared to running an in-person event, say, that might require substantial coordination beyond their day-to-day reporting.

Starting with low-hanging fruit can bring rewards in the short or long term, sometimes in unexpected ways. But newsrooms should keep track of the time and resources they invest and what they get in return: apparently straightforward opportunities can prove deceptively demanding.

It’s possible to consider revenue without compromising on journalistic ethics

One common concern journalists have is that focusing on their organisation’s revenue will compromise their ability to report ethically or affect their audience’s trust in them. But many organisations — especially smaller organisations — have found ways to open up conversations around revenue with their audiences.

Tech publication 404 Media is one newsroom that openly talks about what advertising it does and doesn’t accept on its podcast and on its website. In interviews, its journalists have said that their audience respects their responsible coverage of the tech industry.

And 404 Media isn’t the only organisation that has found audiences to be sympathetic to a newsroom’s need to cover its costs and pay its team. What’s important is for newsrooms to be transparent about their revenue decisions and, where appropriate, bring their audiences into the decision-making process.

For more resources on how to approach revenue diversification and editorial innovation, check out the Revenue Roadmap guidebook by the International Press Institute and Report for the World. 

Revenue Roadmap guidebook