Overview
Corporate consolidation has combined catastrophically with the rise of targeted online advertising to degrade the quality and independence of journalism. In the resulting tectonic shifts, there are opportunities to build democratic media outlets that channel power to communities and workers.
Whatever your first issue of concern, media had better be your second, because without change in the media, progress in your primary area is far less likely.
— Robert W. McChesney
Seismic shifts in how news is funded have plunged journalism into an extended crisis. As a result, movements and civil society have an opportunity to create a news ecosystem that is aligned with popular priorities. But this chance won’t last.
As tech platforms have cut deeply into advertising revenues, news organizations are more dependent on reader revenue, and this has given audiences more power. They now worry relatively less about corporate advertisers and relatively more about anything that could cause a wave of mass unsubscriptions. While this trend is broadly positive, the power of subscribers and donors remains mostly unrealized. A corporate representative can still influence coverage by conveying mild discomfort in a meeting about a multi-million-dollar ad buy. To match that, thousands of monthly donors would have to threaten to leave in unison.
The fact that these publications are for-profit means a big chunk of reader revenue is paying shareholders, not journalists. While no publication would exist without its readers, investors make the big decisions: hiring, firing, editorial mandates, and budgeting.
A truly accountable media economy needs readers to be actively involved in democratically shaping the news institutions they rely on. Media cooperatives, where workers and audience members collectively, proactively and democratically determine the direction of the organization provide an important example.
Cooperatives can take many forms, depending on their membership structure.
Worker cooperatives like Mexico’s La Jornada or Uruguay’s Brecha are democratically controlled by the workers. Consumer cooperatives like Germany’s Taz, England’s Bristol Cable or the NB Media Co-op in Canada are owned and funded by readers, who employ journalists to carry out the mandate. Multi-stakeholder cooperatives like Scotland’s The Ferret and Canada’s Media Co-op (of which this writer was a co-founder) bring reader-members, worker members, and sometimes contributors together on the board of directors.
In each case, members are involved in the big decisions. And when the model is successful, each media institution is more connected to the creativity and energy of its workers and readers. That can mean better coverage overall, resilience in times of crisis, and the ability to change leadership that is out of step with members’ needs. But a cooperative isn’t the only way for readers and workers to be represented.
In 2022, the Guardian pulled in nearly $100 million from online reader revenues—mostly monthly donations. A non-profit like the Guardian could, and should, have board seats reserved for representatives elected from its reader-donors. Readers should have a forum to discuss the priorities and standards of that institution.
Despite hopeful entrepreneurial rhetoric, reader-funded outlets are not growing fast enough to make up for the wreckage left behind by corporate media. To restore an economic basis for journalism—and create for the first time a vibrant and truly democratic media—bigger investments are needed. Government funding is a fraught subject, but it is possible to design such programs in ways that keep control in the hands of voters instead of bureaucrats or corporate actors.
On the scale of an individual reader, journalism is expensive. But if we think of it as a social institution on the level of schools or health care, it’s exceptionally cheap—about $20 per year, per person could double the number of journalists in any given country.
The challenge is to keep the interests and desires of each person connected to the value they create—whether by funding, reading or creating the news.
