(Roughly) Daily

It’s all too clear that the fourth estate in the U.S. is in trouble. Indeed, the wrenching contraction of the field has become one of journalism’s most covered stories. Here, for example, Alex Weprin on the sorry state of things…

It wasn’t all that long ago that a billionaire buying a storied news publication was a sign of hope and optimism. After all, they had money to lose, and they earned their fortunes by creating something new. Maybe they could figure out how to make media work?

And what about private equity? It’s an industry premised on turnarounds: acquiring underperforming companies, reimagining them and making them succeed.

Or the classic family-owned publication: Keeping a business in the family with no goal of excessive profits, just a certain amount of stability to keep the legacy alive.

Unfortunately, it seems, no category of owner appears able to salvage a media business in decline, with business models still stuck in the past (programmatic, anyone?) and editorial models built for a world before Facebook, TikTok and artificial intelligence.

The media sector is facing a crisis unlike anything seen since the 2008 financial mess, with layoffs and cost-cutting at every turn. The cuts have all occurred in the backdrop of declining web readership at many major publishers over the past year, as tech giants like Meta (Instagram, Facebook) and Google try to keep consumers on their own platforms while old standby referrers like Twitter/X no longer deliver as many readers and the social media landscape fractures.

The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Time, Condé Nast, Sports Illustrated, Business Insider, New York Daily News, National Geographic and The Baltimore Sun have all been in the news just this month for layoffs, cost-cutting, labor walkouts or bleak prognosticating…

“The Media Is Melting Down, and Neither Billionaires Nor Journalists Can Seem to Stop It” Hollywood Reporter

There are other– so many other– examples of this kind of grim survey I might have cited, e.g. here or here…

But as Monika Bauerlein, CEO of Mother Jones + Reveal, explains, news– like democracy– can be saved. After recounting several of the same examples, she stipulates to the issue, and then offers a way forward:

… What is—to use a word smart men love to toss out—the gamechanger for the news business?

There isn’t one. Period. End of story.

That’s not a doom prediction. It’s just a reality check. Because the news “business” is over. Dead. No smart guy or better mousetrap is going to get us to a world where quality journalism makes enough money to survive as a for-profit business.

And the truth is, it never did. There was a period when publishers and broadcasters raked in the dough because they were the only ones who could get ads in front of eyeballs. But even then, what made the money was not the shoeleather accountability work. It was the sports section, the real estate supplement, the bar ads.

That model did start creaking in the late 20th century. And then, sometime later, it stopped creaking. Because it was dead.

Sure, there are zombies walking around: hedge fund–owned newspapers, digital startups trying to party like it’s 2009, magazines run by Anna Wintour. But they are getting shakier with each year, sometimes each week. The Messenger, which launched last year with a promise to assemble a giant audience with viral stories and softball Donald Trump interviews, was still publishing when I started writing this column. By the time I found a closing sentence eight hours later it was gone, having set on fire $50 million in startup capital—enough to run Mother Jones well into 2026.

Some news companies have managed to avoid zombification, most notably the New York Times. But that’s because the Times found a business model as a lifestyle brand for the literate, cosmopolitan, and somewhat liberal. How many news-based lifestyle brands can there be?

No doubt there will be a handful of other commercial news organizations that thrive as for-profit companies. But a handful is nowhere near enough. We need thousands of robust newsrooms to serve the many different audiences that make up our democracy. And to get there, we need to stop pretending journalism can make anyone rich, and instead try like hell to serve the public interest… while breaking even.

That’s it. No fancy mousetrap, no shiny object for investors or funders. No billionaire owners who might push out the editor-in-chief because they’re upset with coverage of their friend’s dog. No faux centrist news from conservative heavyweights. Just a hard slog of putting together the money, one dollar at a time, to give people the information they need to change the world, one heart and mind at a time.

That’s what Mother Jones has been trying to do for the past (nearly) half-century. It’s the toughest model to make work. Except for all the others.

Here’s a proposition to all those funders, donors, and investors looking for the Next Big Thing. It’s not quite “one weird trick,” as the internet used to say, but there is a pretty simple formula for survival in the news business. The Next Big Thing, it turns out, might be the Big Thing That Was There All Along:

1. Create solid journalism that earns the trust of a community—geographic, identity-based, or interest-based (for example, Mother Jones’ community is one of people who want to see the world change for the better).
2. Give folks a chance to support that journalism with their money, attention, and input
3. To that foundation of trust and support, add an honest, smart business operation that brings in whatever other forms of revenue are available so long as they don’t undermine #1.

That’s it! No white papers, no pitch decks, no BS…

“It’s Not Just the End for Journalism. It’s a Beginning.” from @MonikaBauerlein and @MotherJones. Eminently worth reading in full (and supporting MJ‘s important work).

* Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

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As we contribute to clear-sighted civil discourse, we might recall that it was on this date in 1981 that Walter Cronkite, who had anchored the CBS Evening News for 19 years, signed off for the final time. A journalist since 1935, Cronkite had joined CBS in 1950 (though he’d been offered, but refused a chance to join the “Murrow Boys” team of war correspondents in 1943). He did reportage, anchored political convention coverage, hosted You Are There and CBS’s Morning Show (its answer to NBC’s Today), and was the lead broadcaster of the network’s coverage of the 1960 Winter Olympics, the first-ever time such an event was televised in the United States (replacing Jim McKay, who had suffered a mental breakdown).

Then, on April 16, 1962, Cronkite succeeded Douglas Edwards as anchorman of the CBS’s nightly feature newscast; in September of 1963, that 15 minute show was expanded to a half hour. Cronkite also hosted the network’s special coverage– perhaps most notably, of the Kennedy assassination and of NASA missions. He became “the most trusted man in America” and received numerous honors including two Peabody Awards, a George Polk Award, an Emmy Award, and in 1981 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy Carter.

Except on nights when he closed with opinion (as, famously, his observations on the Vietnam War), he ended every newscast with the words “… and that’s the way it is,” followed by the date of the broadcast.

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