Publishing for peanuts Innovation and the Journalism Start-up Public version By JJ Robinson, Kristen Grennan, Anya Schiffrin Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs International Media, Advocacy, and Communications This report was commissioned in May 2015 by the Open Society Foundation’s Program for Independent Journalism 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors would like to thank the following people who shared their ideas as we were researching this report: Monica Almeida, Ben Colmery, Sheila Coronel, Shuwei Fang, Andrea Kavanaugh, Michael Lamon, Negussie Mengesh, Rohini Nilekani, Kate O’Regan, Joseph E. Stiglitz, Maria Teresa Ronderos, Soomin Seo, James Wolfensohn. We’d also like to thank Ryan Powell for his research and help with organization, and all our case study subjects who took the time to participate in this project. Cover photo: A Burmese security guard reads a newspaper. By JJ Robinson 2 Contents I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ................................................................................................................. 5 II. MAIN FINDINGS......................................................................................................................... 11 III. RECOMMENDATIONS .............................................................................................................. 22 For journalism entrepreneurs ................................................................................................... 22 For the media development community: ................................................................................. 28 IV. INNOVATION INDEX ................................................................................................................. 32 Editorial Journalism, content and production .......................................................................... 35 Business Models, admin and ways to raise and manage revenue .......................................... 39 Distribution Circulation, dissemination and anything related to medium ............................... 45 Security Physical, cybersecurity, and anything related to political survival ............................. 48 V. METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................................................ 51 VI. LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................................................ 54 ‘Gaining Ground: How Non-Profit News Ventures Seek Sustainability’ ................................... 56 ‘The Story So Far: What We Know About the Business of Digital Journalism’ ......................... 58 ‘Seeking the Single Subject News Model’ ................................................................................. 60 ‘Global Investigative Journalism: Strategies for Support’ ........................................................ 62 ‘Business Journalism Thrives - Even Under Repressive Regimes’ ............................................. 63 ‘Investigative Journalism in Emerging Democracies’ ................................................................ 64 ‘Chasing Sustainability on the Net’ ........................................................................................... 65 ‘Survival is Success: Journalistic Online Start-ups in Western Europe’ .................................... 67 ‘Africa’s Media Boom: The Role of International Aid’ .............................................................. 69 Mobile media services at Sub-Saharan African newspapers .................................................... 72 VII. CASE STUDIES .......................................................................................................................... 74 THE CONVERSATION – Australia (25th) ..................................................................................... 75 CRIKEY – Australia (25th) ........................................................................................................... 80 DAILY MAVERICK – South Africa (39th) ...................................................................................... 84 EYEWITNESS NEWS – South Africa (39th) .................................................................................. 88 NEWS TOOLS – South Africa (39th) ............................................................................................ 92 OXPECKERS – South Africa (39th) .............................................................................................. 95 3 INVESTIGATEWEST – USA (49th) ................................................................................................ 98 NEWS DEEPLY – USA (49th) ..................................................................................................... 102 OCCRP - Bosnia and Herzegovina (66th) .................................................................................. 105 OJO PUBLICO – Peru (92nd) ..................................................................................................... 111 RootIO – Uganda (97th) ........................................................................................................... 113 MASHALLAH NEWS – Lebanon (98th) ...................................................................................... 120 Agência Pública – Brazil (99th) ................................................................................................. 123 Jota – Brazil (99th) .................................................................................................................. 126 AFRICAN SKYCAM – Kenya (100th) .......................................................................................... 130 iHUB – Kenya (100th) ............................................................................................................... 133 HIMAL SOUTHASIAN – Nepal (105th) ...................................................................................... 136 THE WILL – Nigeria (111th) ...................................................................................................... 140 MINIVAN NEWS – Maldives (112nd) ...................................................................................... 143 INDIASPEND – India (136th) ..................................................................................................... 147 GRAM VAANI – India (136th) ................................................................................................... 151 7iber – Jordan (143rd) .............................................................................................................. 156 MALAYSIAKINI – Malaysia (147th) ........................................................................................... 160 ANIMAL POLITICO – Mexico (148th) ........................................................................................ 164 CHIAPAS PARALELO – Mexico (148th) ..................................................................................... 167 EL DAILY POST – Mexico (148th) .............................................................................................. 169 EMEEQUIS – Mexico (148th) .................................................................................................... 173 HORIZONTAL – Mexico (148th) ................................................................................................ 175 LadoB – Mexico (148th) ........................................................................................................... 178 LIBERACION – Mexico (148th) .................................................................................................. 181 RIODOCE – Mexico (148th) ...................................................................................................... 185 SinEMBARGO – Mexico (148th) ............................................................................................... 187 ECO-BUSINESS – Singapore (153rd) ......................................................................................... 190 MADA MASR – Egypt (158th) ................................................................................................... 195 GUOKR – China (176th) ............................................................................................................ 198 4 I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Introduction This report was commissioned by OSF’s Program on Independent Journalism in May 2015. Our remit was to look for innovative media outlets that are producing high-quality news, that are technologically innovative and that might actually survive financially. Accordingly, we spent three months interviewing media innovators around the world and reading what others have written on the subject. This report is divided into seven sections: 1) this introduction, 2) our main findings, 3) two sets of recommendations, one for the media development community and another set for people starting a media outlet, 4) an “Innovation Index” listing practices that we found around the world, 5) a description of our methodology, 6) a review of practitioner reports we read, 7) write-ups describing 35 media outlets, based on interviews we conducted. These are listed by their ranking in the 2015 Press Freedom Index ranking by Reporters Without Borders. What do we consider a ‘journalism startup’? We included small-to-medium size independent media outlets with a track record of consistently producing credible content independently of state and mainstream media in the countries in which they were operating. ‘Startup’ is descriptive of their work practices