Winning digital strategy: Think first of the community you serve, not the audience you sell to

You already know the story well -- how the business model for traditional media collapsed in the U.S. (Pew: State of the News Media 2016).

And how digital advertising's market share surpassed print and will overtake television this year.

And how media organizations have responded by cutting staff and weakening their products in order to keep profit margins high -- newspapers eliminated 20,000 jobs in 20 years  (p. 17), a 39% decline in employment.

All of this has been done to serve advertisers and investors at the expense of the most important people in the media equation -- the public, the readers, the users. But now publishers are rediscovering the importance of focusing on serving readers.

Readers, viewers rule

Now that digital media have broken up that arranged marriage of advertising and news content, publishers are realizing once again that their business is a public service and that the most important people in the equation are not the investors and the advertisers but the public.

News organizations have attracted $187 million in grants since 2005

The new ecosystem of small news organizations continues to evolve at breathtaking speed. When you consider that it has been only four years since the news industry’s business model went into free fall, the number of new organizations and their quality are impressive. 

Also impressive is the financial support that they have attracted. J-Lab has just updated its database of grant activity to news projects since 2005, and the totals are: 

• $186 million 
•  from 274 foundations
•  to 146 news projects
•  775 grants
•  23 states