Is quality journalism sustainable? Here are 20 media organizations that are solving this problem

This post is part of a study that identifies 20 media organizations from 16 countries and four regions  --Eastern and Central Europe, Western Europe, Latin America, and the United States-- that have developed sustainable business models for high-quality journalism. This list is by no means exclusive. The examples were chosen to present a variety of solutions to this challenge. We welcome comments on other media we could have included.

-- James Breiner

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Frustrated fact-checkers: the lies keep being told

Lies have a life of their own, and people want to believe them, especially when they are about people they don't like, "the other". Facts don't sway people.

As Laura Hazard Owen recently reported in Nieman Lab, three leading fact-checking organizations have said their work needs to go beyond simply calling out the lies of prominent people. This work is valuable, but the fact-checkers don't have big enough audiences to reach everyone who is receiving the false or misleading information. "Fact checkers are outspent by [political] campaigns 100 to 1 or more at election times," say the fact-checkers. 

So the fact-checkers have issued a call to action in which they don't just clarify or disprove the misleading information. They "publish and act". "We seek corrections on the record, pressure people not to make the same mistake again, complain where possible to a standards body. In other words, we use whatever forms of moral, public, or where appropriate regulatory pressure are available to stop the spread of specific bits of misinformation."

See also: Nieman Lab's list of news credibility projects 

Less than half of people in 38 countries trust "most news most of the time". And they have very little trust in the news they find in social media. From Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2019, p. 21.