State of the business model
The traditional journalism business model has long since collapsed, and news organizations have shrunk or disappeared entirely. While a number of promising experiments are under way, the public has not shown a willingness to buy what news organizations are selling.
The Latest
Smartnews launches new app to counter rage-bait and polarisation
News Press Gazette ·Publisher traffic sources: Google steady but social and direct referrals are down
News Press Gazette ·How tribal radio stations are preparing for a future without the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
News Nieman Lab ·A Hollywood Start-Up Targets the Micro Drama Craze
News NYT - Media ·'On fire and hard to kill.' How Maria Bustillos’ Flaming Hydra is fighting for a free internet.
News Long Lead Presents: Depth Perception ·Ready for it? Taylor Swift could set a podcast record
News Poynter ·Josh Kesselman Has Big Ideas for High Times
News Columbia Journalism Review ·Status Turns One
News Status ·Alden Global Capital is still trying to get its hands on The Dallas Morning News
News commentary Nieman Lab ·Wyoming newspaper owners, staffers race to rescue community news
News wyofile.com ·With CPB funding gone, public media must lean on creativity and community
News commentary Current ·What we can learn from America’s long era with no public broadcasting
News commentary Current ·Trump Media to broadcast GB News on US streaming platform Truth+
News The Guardian - Media ·With Cuts to Federal Funding, How Will Public Media in the U.S. Survive?
News Nieman Reports ·Bloomberg Media reports growing subs, advertising and events revenue
News Press Gazette ·The publishers’ guide to being gaslit by tech platforms (the AI edition)
News commentary Digiday ·in brief
CBS News gets a new leader, with an ideological agenda
If there’s nothing in Bari Weiss’s journalism resume that remotely qualifies her to be editor-in-chief of CBS News, there are plenty of clues as to what she likely plans to do with this opportunity. Weiss in July 2020 loudly left her job as a junior editor in the Times’s opinion section, decrying legacy media and claiming “constant bullying by colleagues who disagree with my views” in her resignation letter to Times Publisher AG Sulzberger. A letter she, naturally, released to the public.
Oct. 16, 2025
The web hurt the news business. Will AI hurt it more?
Who owns the future?
Some 30 years after the arrival of the first modern web browser — an initial, small crack in the economic foundation of the news business — the widespread availability of artificial intelligence services make urgent the question once again. The press of a different future, the question of ownership, is being felt keenly in any information business: data, news, entertainment, art. AI will create wealth, people are betting, but how will that wealth be distributed?
July 9, 2025
Editorial decisions are now business decisions, and it’s not going well
News and information have a bedrock role in supporting democracy, but that’s not the business model we’ve chosen for newsrooms.
May 30, 2024
Wanted (needed): a new model for news
What if the problem with the news business is the news itself? For all the hand-wringing and lamentations, the unavoidable truth is that many people have stopped buying news products. Half of all newspaper subscribers have vanished in the past 15 years.
Sept. 14, 2021
What if the press delivered the news people actually need?
Despite the recent election-driven revenue gains for the largest organizations, the landscape facing the news media remains perilous. Saddled with a teetering business model, a skeptical public and a hostile president, the press is groping for a clear path to the future.
Feb. 17, 2017