Shaking the Foundations, in Search of Journalism

Published: October 2, 2007, 9:23 am

Tags: community citizen user gen participatory conversational content, daily newspaper companies, innovation, news democracy, eli broad, joel kramer, knight foundation, l times, minnpost, nelson poynter, sam zell, st petersburg times, tribune

Is there a foundation in your journalistic future? Sunday's New York Times business cover piece by Clifford Krauss on That Little Non-Profit Engine That Can, the St. Petersburg Times, makes a case there may be. The article talks about the historic decision of Nelson Poynter to turn his profitable enterprise into a community gift, and how this seeming anachronism may be a pilot light for our times. With newspaper company margins descending from the 20%+ level, such community-based, journalism-funding ideas are now becoming thinkable. And when billionaries like Eli Broad -- a potential bidder for the L.A. Times once Sam Zell closes his Tribune deal -- support that case, it only gets more interesting. Said Broad: "You could create a nonprofit newspaper and have a number of foundations be contributors to the nonprofit. Put that together with small-scale experiments like MinnPost, the Joel Kramer-led online-only journalism site soon to launch in the Twin Cities, and we see the

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