Many major newspapers, including The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, have experienced significant layoffs and financial struggles.
Billionaire ownership of newspapers, once seen as a potential rescue, is now being questioned.
There’s a growing interest in the idea of major publications becoming non-profits to ensure their survival, although this would mean the end of billionaire ownership.
“The rich guy rescue plan rarely works,” New York University associate professor Jay Rosen said. “The rescuer typically underestimates how hard it is to find money in news and keep quality reasonably high. When that is made clear, a rich guy’s commitment starts faltering. And the hedge funds lie in wait.”
“There are large newsrooms who have converted to non-profits such as the Texas Tribune, but we haven’t seen any of the top 10 news organizations do it,” Sharine Azimi said.
“Nonprofit news organizations are going to play a bigger role in how audiences find news and connect with their communities,” ProPublica’s Dan Petty said. “But it’s still an uphill climb. There’s a common refrain that being a nonprofit is a tax status, not a business model.”
Non-profit news organizations are gaining traction, offering a potential alternative for sustaining journalism.
“A nonprofit might fund a general news publication or one that will cover the environment in a news desert,” USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism professor Laura Castaneda said. “But I don’t know if any of them will ever fund the kind of a big, general-market type of newspaper that we grew up with.”
The role of billionaires in saving newspapers is increasingly being criticized, with calls for more sustainable models and government support to protect working journalists and combat the decline of local news outlets.
“Billionaires aren’t saving America’s newsrooms. Corporate greed and hedge funds are murdering newsrooms across the U.S. and America’s journalists are standing up and fighting back for their communities,” NewsGuild president Jon Schleuss said.
“The United States has lost almost two-thirds of its newspaper journalists — 43,000 since 2005,” Schleuss wrote. “Local newsrooms from New York to rural South Arkansas are being hollowed out, causing news deserts, communities with little to no local news outlets.”
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