the economics of investigative journalism: what price is right?

The economics of accountability journalism:What price is right?

James Breiner, Universidad de Navarra, Spain@jamesbreiner

20 years as reporter, business editor, head of investigative team

11 years on the dark side, publisher of a business weekly

Dominant duo

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•56% of mobile advertising globally•40% of digital advertising globally

“What you think you know about the Web is wrong.”

– Tony Haile CEO of Chartbeat

• Of 2 billion visits to hundreds of sites, 55% lasted less than 15 seconds

Few spend more than 2 minutes a day

Aargh!

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• Piracy (aggregators)• Bots, click fraud • Ad blockers

ROI: Billions in taxes recovered, fines levied

‘Radical sharing’•Lone wolf journalists share their data, help each other•Media organizations work together, across borders, across cultures

Graphic: Figures are euros per capita. From Nielsen & Linnebank (p. 16).

Distributed content

• Facebook Instant Articles• Google Accelerated Mobile Pages• Snapchat Discover• Instagram• Apple News • Etc.

+ Faster load times for pages+ Gives publishers some money+ Extends the reach of publishers- Dilutes importance of their website

Go for scale, eyeballs, CPMs like BuzzFeed

Or for engagement, relationships like Texas Trib

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•14,500 ‘partners’ pay $66 a year• Value proposition is “editorial independence”• $800,000 a year, 1/3 of budget• Less than 1% of audience• 54 employees

Relationships, not eyeballs

“Journalism in spite of it everything”

•Launched in Holland in 2013 •Initial crowdfunding $1.7 million•40,000 subscribers pay $66/yr •No ads, value prop. “editorial independence”•14 full-time journalists, 22 correspondents

•Launched in 1999 by two journalists•published in Tamil, Chinese, Malay, English•9 million visitors a month•16,000 subscribers pay $40 for English version

Expenses of senators, congress

• 10 Harleys for senators• Syndicated to major media

Should you charge for online news?

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• Pay wall service merged with Tinypass• 1,200 news media on four continents• $40 million in revenues for Piano in 2015

What am I paying for, exactly?

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• iTunes for news• 600,000 users in Germany Holland• Pitch in U.S.: ‘no ads, no clickbait’• $3.3 million from Axel Springer, NYT

Who pays for accountability journalism and how much?

• Public subsidies- BBC, Nordic countries• Non-profits, grants - local media, public radio• Relationship model - Texas Trib, MinnPost, eldiario.es• Subscription model - De Correspondent, Malaysiakini• Paywalls - bundled digital and print (survival)• Blendle - iTunes for news

Let’s continue the conversation in Pamplona. Come visit

James Breiner, Universidad de Navarra, Spain@jamesbreinerjamesbreiner@gmail.com