Panel
Journalism Today: New Voices, New Models, New Methods | Global Conference 2024
Milken InstituteJosh Barro, Carlissia Graham, Nicholas Johnston, Jon Kelly, Janice Min, Kimi Yoshino
- The industry outlook anticipates a bifurcation where profitable new business models, nonprofit continuities, and "affinity-driven" journalism offering "farm-to-table" depth will coexist with a landscape of information overload and eroded public goodwill.
- The Ankler plans to grow its subscriber base from 80,000 to a larger audience while doubling annual subscription prices from $75 to $149, relying on a revenue split of 60% advertising and 40% subscriptions following a $1.3 million seed round.
- Puck projects reaching a break-even trajectory with 40,000 paying subscribers generating approximately $10 million in 2023, with future goals of 17 journalists covering diverse verticals and a subscriber mix where the majority pay $100 annually and a tier exists at $250.
- The Baltimore Banner aims to expand its newsroom from 80 to 100 journalists, extend its reach across Maryland, and achieve break-even by 2026 with a $20 million annual budget supported by 50,000 paying subscribers generating $10 million in subscription revenue.
- Axios intends to launch a local expansion into 30 cities over a two-year period by recruiting top-tier community journalists, maintaining free access for users while generating revenue through a membership program and advertising rather than paywalls.
- The market is expected to prioritize "smart brevity" and data science to address information fatigue, with a specific focus on "affinity-driven" buckets that have not yet been fully solved compared to the established "front line of news."
- Investors are described as increasingly reticent regarding media due to past losses and a disconnect between short-term growth demands and the reality that industry shifts, rather than pure velocity, dictate future value.
- Risks to the sector include the erosion of public trust over the last decade, the potential loss of editorial independence if government funding increases, and the difficulty of solving local news profitability due to low productivity and small addressable audiences.
- Technology, particularly AI, is viewed as a tool to help indie and local newsrooms operate with smaller teams (e.g., five instead of 50) for tasks like art, design, and data scraping, despite current inaccuracies and journalist skepticism.
- Future business models for local media are predicted to move away from competing daily paper structures toward utility-based services regarding local goods and services, while broadband access remains a critical infrastructure variable for information equity.