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Journalists should invest in journalism startups, particularly now

businessside.co

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Re: Journalists should invest in journalism startups, particularly now

#21

Post by chaps »

snowwrestler wrote: post #16
tony_cannistra wrote: post #3

Not sure if this guy has ever met a journalist. Where precisely are the journalists who are paid sufficiently well for their skill that they have liquidity to invest in startups? edit: alright turns out he's "former chief of staff at the Atlantic" but I still remain convinced he's decently out of touch with everyday journalists' financial situation.

You’re misunderstanding the idea. Venture capitalists don’t invest their own money, they raise funds from other people and institutions, and make funding decisions on their behalf. The idea here is that journalists have skills and domain knowledge that would help them make better than average decisions when it comes to media startups. So: Raising and directing capital, not necessarily originating it.

Journalists are already heavily involved in capital raising through applying for grants and scholarships. Our time is already thin, so this article is effectively asking us to switch careers or become part-time investors.

Re: Journalists should invest in journalism startups, particularly now

#23

Post by jstarfish »

Maybe I'll be forced to eat crow, but investing in a domain of expertise that can be faked by a batch of looped Python scripts seems like the stupidest idea ever.

edit: Journalism is one of those trades where people care about their craft. They're passionate and emotionally invested in it, and it's been threatened in recent decades, so anyone affected is primed to make misguided decisions in an attempt to preserve that which they care about.

No beak for me, this is going to bankrupt desperate journalists in a massive exit scam.

Re: Journalists should invest in journalism startups, particularly now

#24

Post by Scoundreller »

all2 wrote: post #18
chaps wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. I'm a freelance journalist and this is one of the worst journalism takes I've seen in a while. Paying bills is already hard enough as it is and I, like many others in this industry, don't even have health insurance: why in the fuck would any of us invest in a startup?

One of the companies I worked for was an ESOP [0]. Has there ever been anything like that in terms of journalistic publications? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_Stock_Ownership_Plan

Hopefully not since the shares tend to go to $0.

Though I’d note The Economist has staff and former staff as minority shareholders.

Re: Journalists should invest in journalism startups, particularly now

#25

Post by all2 »

Scoundreller wrote: post #24
all2 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the companies I worked for was an ESOP [0]. Has there ever been anything like that in terms of journalistic publications? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_Stock_Ownership_Plan

Hopefully not since the shares tend to go to $0. Though I’d note The Economist has staff and former staff as minority shareholders.

The place I was at paid a lot more than $0 per share. Is zero share value common for ESOPs?

Re: Journalists should invest in journalism startups, particularly now

#27

Post by tootie »

Decabytes wrote: post #8
tootie wrote: post #2

I don't see how investing will save the industry from decline. If there was more revenue to be had, the legacy players wouldn't be struggling so badly. Investors chasing profits are just going to build a better Buzzfeed, not a better NY Times. Unless someone can crack the nut of profiting off of serious journalism and making the average TikTok scroller or Joe Rogan listener exercise a little more skepticism and under…

There are definitely people on Substack who have been able to see success doing the whole "independent non biased news" schtick, but I'm not sure if it's possible to build a NYT level of business doing that. At the same time, maybe smaller independent news outfits that are run by at most a handful of people, that cover more local news might be able to make it work if they keep their expenses low.

The substack realm is very iffy to me. I think there's a few really sharp thinkers, but they are almost exclusively doing analysis and opinion. It's extremely hard to get primary sources talking to a blogger. You might think you're getting a fresh perspective, but really they are just reading a load of MSM sources for you and giving you a filtered version.

Re: Journalists should invest in journalism startups, particularly now

#28

Post by Scoundreller »

six_four_eight wrote: post #5
tootie wrote: post #2

I don't see how investing will save the industry from decline. If there was more revenue to be had, the legacy players wouldn't be struggling so badly. Investors chasing profits are just going to build a better Buzzfeed, not a better NY Times. Unless someone can crack the nut of profiting off of serious journalism and making the average TikTok scroller or Joe Rogan listener exercise a little more skepticism and under…

Agree in that “Startups” imply scale and that’s just race to the bottom clickbait with maybe a little real news on the side. However, one example here in Canada is “Canadaland”, which is profitable, funded partly by subscribers, and has investigated and broken real stories. The founder has made the point recently that journalism is not something that scales, but can be a successful business by serving an audience.

Canadaland may have been bootstrapped/helped along by its journalist founder getting some cut out of what they co-founded, “bitmoji” maker bitstrips, which was sold to Snapchat for a reported US$100m.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitstrips

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Brown_(journalist)

Maybe the article title should be “Journalists that have successful exits in non-journalism startups should invest in journalism startups”

Re: Journalists should invest in journalism startups, particularly now

#29

Post by Animats »

Journalism startups. There have been some.

- Contentville. Whatever happened to that?

- Brill's Content? Started by the heir to a streetcar manufacturing company.

- Vice Media is in bankruptcy and about to be sold.

- Gawker - crushed by Peter Thiel.

Any big successes?

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