The document discusses the challenges facing independent journalism in the digital age. It notes that the amount of information created has exploded in recent years, making it difficult for news organizations to compete for readers' limited attention. Newspapers in particular are struggling to capture digital advertising dollars. The document advocates for multi-platform business models and argues that the mission of journalism need not be opposed to commercial sustainability through approaches like paid content and membership models.

1. Independent Journalism:
Doing good and doing well
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2. Are you suffering from IOS?
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3. Are you suffering from IOS?
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4. Eric Schmidt of Google
“Between the birth of the
world and 2003, there were five
exabytes of information created.
We [now] create five exabytes
every two days. See why it’s so
painful to operate in information
markets?”
from an interview at Atmosphere 2010 conference
Photo by Charles Haynes, Some Rights Reserved
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5. 1 exabyte = 1 million terrabytes
photo by Ray Tsang
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An exabyte is 1 million terabytes
The entire printed collection of the US Library of Congress is 10 terabytes
So an exabyte is 100,000 Libraries of Congress

6. Library of Congress = 10 terrabytes
photo by Ray Tsang
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An exabyte is 1 million terabytes
The entire printed collection of the US Library of Congress is 10 terabytes
So an exabyte is 100,000 Libraries of Congress

7. 1 exabyte = 100,000 Libraries of Congress
photo by Ray Tsang
4
An exabyte is 1 million terabytes
The entire printed collection of the US Library of Congress is 10 terabytes
So an exabyte is 100,000 Libraries of Congress

8. Photo: Joi Ito, quote from News.me 5
Mohamed Nanabhay, former head of Al Jazeera Online, on the competitive challenges that
news organisations face in an age of almost limitless content.

9. We’re competing with
everybody who puts up a
webpage on the internet.
And everybody who tweets,
or posts on Facebook, or
anything.
Photo: Joi Ito, quote from News.me 5
Mohamed Nanabhay, former head of Al Jazeera Online, on the competitive challenges that
news organisations face in an age of almost limitless content.

10. The battle for attention
Average Local US Newspaper New York Times Facebook
Source: The Newsonomics of time-on-site, Jan 2010 by Ken Doctor
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The average news reader spends little time on newspaper-owned sites, from a 20 minutes a
month or so on the New York Times site to eight to 12 minutes on most local newspaper
sites. That’s minutes per month. Those numbers, as tracked by Nielsen and reported monthly
by Editor and Publisher, are steady at best, showing, in fact, some recent decline. They are,
literally, stuck in time.
Then, take the number of minutes Internet users spend on social sites. Nielsen’s January tally
showed seven hours of usage a month on Facebook alone, in the U.S., blowing away all
competition.
And of course, that doesn’t even come close to the four hours a day(!) that Americans spend
watching television.

11. The battle for attention
Average Local US Newspaper New York Times Facebook
Source: The Newsonomics of time-on-site, Jan 2010 by Ken Doctor
6
The average news reader spends little time on newspaper-owned sites, from a 20 minutes a
month or so on the New York Times site to eight to 12 minutes on most local newspaper
sites. That’s minutes per month. Those numbers, as tracked by Nielsen and reported monthly
by Editor and Publisher, are steady at best, showing, in fact, some recent decline. They are,
literally, stuck in time.
Then, take the number of minutes Internet users spend on social sites. Nielsen’s January tally
showed seven hours of usage a month on Facebook alone, in the U.S., blowing away all
competition.
And of course, that doesn’t even come close to the four hours a day(!) that Americans spend
watching television.

12. The battle for attention
Average Local US Newspaper New York Times Facebook
Source: The Newsonomics of time-on-site, Jan 2010 by Ken Doctor
6
The average news reader spends little time on newspaper-owned sites, from a 20 minutes a
month or so on the New York Times site to eight to 12 minutes on most local newspaper
sites. That’s minutes per month. Those numbers, as tracked by Nielsen and reported monthly
by Editor and Publisher, are steady at best, showing, in fact, some recent decline. They are,
literally, stuck in time.
Then, take the number of minutes Internet users spend on social sites. Nielsen’s January tally
showed seven hours of usage a month on Facebook alone, in the U.S., blowing away all
competition.
And of course, that doesn’t even come close to the four hours a day(!) that Americans spend
watching television.

13. The battle for attention
Average Local US Newspaper New York Times Facebook
Source: The Newsonomics of time-on-site, Jan 2010 by Ken Doctor
6
The average news reader spends little time on newspaper-owned sites, from a 20 minutes a
month or so on the New York Times site to eight to 12 minutes on most local newspaper
sites. That’s minutes per month. Those numbers, as tracked by Nielsen and reported monthly
by Editor and Publisher, are steady at best, showing, in fact, some recent decline. They are,
literally, stuck in time.
Then, take the number of minutes Internet users spend on social sites. Nielsen’s January tally
showed seven hours of usage a month on Facebook alone, in the U.S., blowing away all
competition.
And of course, that doesn’t even come close to the four hours a day(!) that Americans spend
watching television.

14. From mass to relevance
The evolution from numbers to relevance by Mahendra Palsule
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15. 8
Advertising overload. Online there is simply too much ad inventory. CPMs not just in the US
but in markets around the world are declining.
During recession, online ad rates plummeted due to oversupply of content Source:
PaidContent

16. Society knows how to react to scarcity.” We know how to ration, save, and preserve when we
need to do so. It’s much harder to set priorities and find our path when information
abounds. We may drown. We may get side-tracked. We may shut down. But, in any case,
abundance confuses and distracts us more than scarcity does.

17. Abundance breaks
more things than
scarcity does
Photo: Clay making a point by Joi Ito
Source: Shirky at NFAIS: How Abundance Breaks
Everything by Ann Michael
Society knows how to react to scarcity.” We know how to ration, save, and preserve when we
need to do so. It’s much harder to set priorities and find our path when information
abounds. We may drown. We may get side-tracked. We may shut down. But, in any case,
abundance confuses and distracts us more than scarcity does.

18. US papers failing to capture dollars
Digital ad revenues increased by more than
four times from 2003-2011 to $31.7 bn.
Digital newspaper ad sales increased from
only $1.2 bn to $3.2 bn during the same
period.
Newspapers capture lower percentage of
digital ads now than in 2003
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It is not that there isn’t money to be made from digital advertising, the problem is rather that
newspapers aren’t the ones capturing that value.
From Alan Mutter, Reflections of a Newsosaur.

19. Photo from Dan O’Brien
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Real-time bidding. This is already putting further downward pressure on CPM rates.
From Lewis Dvorkin at Forbes:
Programmatic buying: Welcome to the newest zone of concern for publishers. Think of a Wall
Street trading desk manned by advertising agencies or their representatives. Those display
ads I talked about above can now be bought at auction on computer exchanges — and all it
takes is milliseconds. Real-time bidding, as it’s often called, is fast, efficient — and cheap.
The biggest challenge for publishers: display ads that are sold by sales people for, say, a $15
CPM (cost per thousand impressions), often trade on the exchanges for a few bucks.

20. Lloyd Dobler: The patron saint of journalists
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Just like Lloyd, we don’t went to sell anything.

21. Lloyd Dobler: The patron saint of journalists
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Just like Lloyd, we don’t went to sell anything.

22. The business of journalism is often
seen in opposition to the mission
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The business of journalism is often seen in opposition to the mission of journalism. It doesn’t
need to be so, and the belief often holds us back from legitimate, ethical ways to support the
mission of independent journalism.

23. The business of journalism is often
seen in opposition to the mission
13
The business of journalism is often seen in opposition to the mission of journalism. It doesn’t
need to be so, and the belief often holds us back from legitimate, ethical ways to support the
mission of independent journalism.

24. 14
Photo by Sourcefabric
Entrepreneurial sustainability. MDLF is passionate about the mission of journalism and
committed to helping support robust independent media in emerging democracies. That’s
why I say that I help news organisations not only do good but also do well. It's why I love my
job at MDLF.

25. Media cannot be truly
independent unless it
is financially viable.
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Photo by Sourcefabric
Entrepreneurial sustainability. MDLF is passionate about the mission of journalism and
committed to helping support robust independent media in emerging democracies. That’s
why I say that I help news organisations not only do good but also do well. It's why I love my
job at MDLF.

26. Source: thinkpublic from Flickr
Raju Narisetti, the managing of the Wall Street Journal Digital Network, said on Nieman Lab at
the end of last year, “Advertising innovation from media companies should become as critical
as content innovation”.
During the first phase of the digital transition, we focused almost entirely on editorial
innovation. Now, commercial innovation is just as critical if not more critical to a sustainable
future.

27. Multi-platform sustainability
Source: Dan Taylor from Flickr
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We need to move towards multi-platform sustainability - Many of MDLF's clients still have
strong traditional businesses. I realised that when we were talking about the digital
transition, they thought we were not only calling on them to be digital first but to be digital
only. In many places where MDLF works, print still has a powerful business model. We
realised that the shift was really about multi-platform sustainability.

28. El Faro: A digital brand does print
Case study on Kbridge.org
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The power of AND - Multiple platforms enhance reach, impact and commercial opportunities.
El Faro - the power of multiple platforms. El Faro is an independent digital news service in El
Salvador that focuses more on long-form investigations than a daily digital news service. In
2011, an El Salvadoran ad agency came to them wanting to explore the relationship of the the
people and the media and government through the lens of social media. This helped launched
a novel social-media digital campaign to generate ideas to improve El Salvador and give
Salvadorans a voice. They leveraged the power of their political cartoonist and created not just
cartoons on their site but a book. They sold out the first print run, and then they took that
book to El Salvador’s leaders as representatives of the people. The ad agency helped deliver a
sophisticated multi-channel marketing campaign.

29. El Faro: A digital brand does print
Case study on Kbridge.org
17
The power of AND - Multiple platforms enhance reach, impact and commercial opportunities.
El Faro - the power of multiple platforms. El Faro is an independent digital news service in El
Salvador that focuses more on long-form investigations than a daily digital news service. In
2011, an El Salvadoran ad agency came to them wanting to explore the relationship of the the
people and the media and government through the lens of social media. This helped launched
a novel social-media digital campaign to generate ideas to improve El Salvador and give
Salvadorans a voice. They leveraged the power of their political cartoonist and created not just
cartoons on their site but a book. They sold out the first print run, and then they took that
book to El Salvador’s leaders as representatives of the people. The ad agency helped deliver a
sophisticated multi-channel marketing campaign.

30. .týždeň: Charging, yes. But what for?
Kbridge.org: More about Piano and Tyzden
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Paid content, yes, but what to charge for? .týždeň - Slovakian news magazine with a
reputation for cutting edge photography. Wanted to create a web presence that was
consistent with their brand of high impact visual journalism. Rebuilt their website, added a
blogging network and translated their visual stills style into a video style. They now produce a
programme in partnership with Slovakian public TV. They have refined their approach to
blogging by having staff and select members of the public blog, and they have become part of
Slovakia's national paid content platform Piano. With paid content 2.0, we're seeing much
more sophistication and nuance than paid versus ad-supported (It was never 'free'. Someone
paid. It was just advertisers not consumers.) You're probably all familiar with metered
paywalls due to the New York Times and now Andrew Sullivan. Piano works with clients to
analyse their audience behaviour and helps answer: What should news groups charge for?

31. Malaysiakini: Partnering on paid content
Kbridge.org: An interview with M-kini CEO Premesh Chandran on his strategy
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One of the news organisations that we work with is Malaysiakini. Just as with Dijonscope, they
used their independent journalism as a selling point to readers, but a challenge to attracting
advertisers in the years immediately after the site launched. Early online advertisers were
government-linked companies and would hardly be willing to support an independent news
site like Malaysiakini.
In 2002, the company realised that it needed to explore other forms of income. “Subscribers,
they are the ones who want this independent news so let’s start charging a fee,” he said. Staff
were initially sceptical, and the site faced unique challenges, including having to provide an
anonymous payment system because the site was seen as “politically sensitive”. They
developed their own pre-paid card and were able to convince a convenience store chain to
sell it.

32. Dijonscope - selling
independent journalism
Source: Sustainable Business Models for Journalism
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Piano Media, the New York Times will all tell you how important marketing is. Dijonscope,
whose tag line is “the price of freedom” moved from advertising to subscription only charging
(90 euros for two years, 50 for a year or 5 a month.

33. Kevin Anderson, kevin.anderson@mdlf.org
Knowledge Bridge editor and digital strategist
Knowledge Bridge http://kbridge.org
Twitter: kevglobal (my account) and kbridgeorg
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