"For healthy media, half of income should come from subscriptions"

OhmyNews founder-CEO Oh Yeon-ho is a robust frontiersman of tech Korea. And here is his theory of health:

"For a news media to remain healthy, it will have to earn at least 50% of its income from the sales of content or paid subscriptions. Despite our best effort, OhmyNews still relies on advertisers for more than 70% of its revenue," Oh said.

He added that if 100,000 readers joined the venture contributing KRW 10,000 a month, OhmyNews would be able to survive without relying on advertising revenues.

Buy why only online start-ups? Pay-ever-more-for-content may be good strategy -- nay, an inescapable reality -- for traditional media too. Consider this: In the first quarter of 2009, newspaper advertising plummeted almost 30 per cent, magazine advertising revenue fell more than 20 per cent, and broadcast television revenue slipped nearly 12 per cent.

Also read: "Stop giving away content via Web, Walter Isaacson advises media"
And: Can selling news via the Web save newspapers?
And: Can selling news via the Web save newspapers?
Finally: "A sustainable model emerges"

A sustainable model emerges: Use collective intelligence but fact-check with journalists

My quick note on sustainable journalism originally published in CCJIG's Spring 2009 newsletter:

A clichéd refrain of critics is that citizen journalists have little incentive to check for facts or fairness, or to even write well.

So is fact-checking on life support?

Consider the evidence. More and more citizen sites are hiring a professional journalist (or two or three) to edit members’ contributions. As citizen journalism matures, it seems to be increasingly turning into a method to investigate a story rather than a replacement for professional journalism.

Is that a challenge to the very premise of citizen journalism? Quite the contrary, it would seem. Take Julien Pain, founder-editor of the French cit-journalism site “Observers.” In recent media interviews, Mr. Pain says Web traffic has zoomed with the increase in perceived credibility. He says his site “takes advantage of the best aspects of a blog, but maintains professional direction.” Clearly, the site has realized enhanced value through edits by a professional.

Another example is Cynthia Farrar’s citizen journalism forum, whose tag line boasts, “People powered, professionally produced.” The site, “Purple States,” was described by one blogger as a “new media company that gathers content from citizen journalists like you, edits their videos and interviews, and delivers those packages to major media outlets.” Its teams comprise “citizen journalists. . . who travel together to report on news from the frontlines. Their journey is professionally. . . edited, and aired on a variety of major media platforms.” Purple States’ documentaries have been streamed on nyt.com, washingtonpost.com, Verizon v-cast as well as on local television.

That seems to be the emerging model: Employ a collective intelligence but fact-check using a professional. I predict it will emerge as the definition of “sustainable journalism,” a meme to explore which Leonard Witt recently got a $1.5 million gift. The model potentially enhances citizen journalism’s credibility but also creates avenues for laid-off journalists.

A citizen site that has bucked the trend is CNN’s “iReport,” which continues to declare that “the stories submitted by users are not edited, fact-checked or screened before they post.” iReport, which turned one year old February 15, has more than 25,000 reporter-members. Its virtual branch in Second Life – “our bigger, better space” as one iReporter gushed – is called iReport Island, the rapidly growing “network of 3-D citizen journalists.” iReports are also broadcast in CNN Radio feeds to “more than 1,500 affiliates in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand Aruba and Newfoundland.”

I expect that if citizen sites won’t fact-check, then others will do it for them – that is a fundamental reason why collective intelligence is a utility. For instance, check out Public-Press.org, Spot.us and Newsdesk.org. Clearly, this idea that others will do the fact-checking, has its own pitfalls given that Web users tend to frequent content which reinforces – not challenges – their attitudes. Mark Glaser of MediaShift once observed that Web traffic to non-partisan fact-check sites -- such as PolitiFact, FactCheck, and the Washington Post’s Fact Checker blog -- is always less than the Web traffic to partisan fact-check sites -- such as Newsbusters (conservative) and Media Matters (liberal).

Besides, consider what Walter Isaacson of the Aspen Institute writes in a recent Time. He calls for Web users to make a “micropayment” via some sort of EZPass system which he claims would, besides saving the newspaper industry, “nourish and encourage all sorts of citizen journalism and blogging.” A consensus seems to be developing that if citizen journalism is to have monetary value, fact-checking will be inevitable.

All of it leads me to offer that we don’t have to be particularly intrepid to appreciate the emerging model – “employ a collective intelligence but fact-check using a professional” – as worthy of our group’s careful attention.

Also see: Can selling news via the Web save newspapers?
And see: Some thoughts on citizen journalism and Mumbai
And: How to add value to amateur content

Witt gets $1.5 million from Harnisch to start new Center for Sustainable Journalism

Bleak as the layoffs scene may be, there is always a silver lining which keeps the future aglitter.

I am pleased to report that Leonard Witt will receive a gift of -- no kidding -- $1.5 million to start a Center for Sustainable Journalism in suburban Atlanta.

The gift, one of the largest ever offered to a citizen journalism scholar, is pledged by the Harnisch Foundation to the Kennesaw State University Foundation. It will help Witt "seek new business models so that high quality, ethically sound journalism continues to have a role in our democratic society."

The Foundation, established by Ruth Ann Harnisch in New York in 1998 with the motto, "If people knew better, they'd do better," is already invested in Witt's idea of representative journalism. Late last year it gave Witt a quarter million dollars for "creating leading-edge experiments in new journalism for the digital age at a time of upheaval in traditional media."

One of Witt's community-supported journalism crucibles may be found here. A quick profile of Ruth Ann Harnisch is available by scrolling down here (pdf 820k).

Witt's story is inspiring for his achievements as much as for his warmly deliberative personality. I am proud to count him as a mentor and friend (he and his enthusiastic wife Diana flew to India for my wedding in 2006.)

Formerly a magazine journalist in Pennsylvania and in Minnesota, Witt edited a book on feature writing and also served as executive director of Minnesota Public Radio's Civic Journalism Initiative. In 2002 he assumed an endowed chair at Kennesaw State -- and found his niche. A few months later he founded the Public Journalism Network.

Since then Witt has emerged as a national figure in the deliberations of journalism reform. Having glided into the professoriate from journalism, Witt's accessible style of sharing ideas stands out in a culture which sometimes accepts inscrutability as a function of erudition.

Witt is a former chair of the Civic & Citizen Journalism Interest Group. I offer him warm congratulations on behalf of all of our 116 registered members -- and I predict that he will treat us to a celebratory round of drinks in Boston!

I have asked Witt to share with me his plans and priorities for the new Center. Please watch this blog for what I hope will be a scoop.