The problem with local news is old news.
For-profit legacy news organizations have been in steep decline since the Great Recession, with workers shrinking across the industry and a growing number of news organizations simply disappearing. Research by Penny Abernathy and her team at Northwestern University shows that between the end of 2019 and June 2022, more than 360 newspapers have closed, with the United States losing a quarter of its newspapers since 2005. Currently, that number will rise to a third of our newspapers in 2025.
It’s also no news that non-profit media organizations have sprung up to fill the gaps and revive the focus on media accountability. Two of the most famous – ProPublica and The Texas Tribune – are within shouting distance of turning 20. The Institute for Nonprofit News was founded in 2009 by representatives of 27 nonprofit news organizations; it now has over 450 members.
Research has shown that nonprofit journalism has characteristics that set it apart from commercial news organizations and citizen journalism. Jan Boehmer, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan, wrote in his 2014 book that nonprofit news is unique because it “employs experienced journalists who have left for-profit organizations and are now seeking to cover their communities in new, deeper ways.” “
In short, these organizations were founded by journalists who believe that communities should be informed by a non-profit, non-political organization committed to public service.
But does the audience know this difference and the benefits of this type of reporting? Does writing an article as reported by a non-profit news organization make the audience perceive it as more credible than if it were written as coming from a for-profit news organization?
Our research shows that it does not. In an online survey-based experiment among a representative group of US adults, we found that classifying an article as nonprofit does not affect how loyal audiences find the reporting. Additionally, listing an article as being from a non-profit organization does not make the reader’s desire to return to that source in the future.
It didn’t matter that the audience trusted the reporters most of the time.
So why should we care if readers see useless news as different?
It comes down to the importance of trust and credibility – and of convincing the audience that those values ​​are worth supporting. It should be important to the public that in order to obtain non-profit tax status, media and legal organizations must serve the public interest – they must be “organized and used extensively” for educational, charitable or social purposes.
Research has shown that the work of non-profit media organizations is very useful in supporting local democracy. “Overall, we find strong support that nonprofit journalism can play an important, complementary role in improving government accountability that can help slow the decline of local newspapers,” scholars Nikki Usher and Sanghoon Kim-Leffingwell wrote in the paper.
Most, if not all, nonprofit journalists would give a strong amen to that finding. Our findings present a challenge to these journalists: Find a way to make it clear to the communities they live in that there is a difference in news that is not beneficial.
Our research provides something for nonprofit journalists to focus on. Since simply labeling the news as “non-profit” doesn’t make a difference, journalists should focus on what they do best: tell stories.
They should clearly explain what it means to be a nonprofit, why it is beneficial to readers and the community, and the broad differences that are reflected in nonprofit media. Define exactly what nonprofit means. Include more about individual stories about how poverty support made the work happen. Speak to the environment: How does this community benefit from an independent news organization that is not built around the profit motive?
Nonprofit media models may be the future of the industry, but we need to agree on what “nonprofit media” means to us before we can expect audiences to notice the difference.
Some would argue that the big question is whether we want the audience to see the difference at all; although we want non-profit media models to be seamlessly integrated into the current. We think that it would be a criticism of the nature of non-profit media that makes it irreversible in today’s environment.
To build and maintain the financial support that fuels the news, it is important to make sure that the model is completely different – the difference should be more than the appearance.
#American #audiences #dont #difference #useless #news #study #finds #Poynter