Category: Future of News

CMW panel on L3C and some thoughts on PRI-Makers Network

The Community Media Workshop held a panel May 7 on the future of news as a social enterprise and the L3C [low profit limited liability company] model.

The following Monday, I attended the bi-annual conference of the PRI-Makers Network. PRIs are Program Related Investments and they are posed at the center of the L3C model. A PRI is an investment made by a foundation — in various forms —  at below market rates. The foundation expects a return on the money – with varying degrees of rigidity. And this investment is “program related” because its is tied to the program areas funded by the foundations. Pretty simple concept!

I will be sharing more of what I learned during those three days in some upcoming posts. Meanwhile, some of my thoughts going in were confirmed: only a small number of foundations are making PRIS. PRIs are only a tiny percent — 1%— of total funding by foundations. As I say in the clip, PRI makers are similar to angels in that they seek and expect a dollar return for their investment.

Their money is, however, patient, [unlike venture capitalists] in that they are asking a below market rate return and will work with the social venture to ensure its success over time. Topmost they are expecting a return in social good for their investment. Foundations are typically working with many partners to make these deals work and there is a lot of haggling at the table over details as in any deal. Foundations themselves are going through a vast culture shift themselves over PRIs and how they fit into philanthropy.

I informally floated the idea of a journalistic operation as a social enterprise by a few PRI-Makers and the idea was met with interest, albeit reserved, as to be expected. More to come

Video 3 from Community Media Workshop on Vimeo.

L3Cs — time to define terms.

It seems we have our work cut out for us.

As we collectively blue sky different operational models for new media companies, we really have to work very thoroughly at helping our new news entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs understand what we are talking about.

I was on a panel Friday with veteran social entrepreneur John Plunkett, hosted by Thom Clark, President of the Community Media Workshop, discussing the low-profit limited liability company (L3C) and its potential for media. It was the first in-depth conversation about L3C operations I have participated in here in Chicago. And deep indeed did Plunkett and Clark take us. Maybe —for this group at least —just a tad too deep into the operational and budget linkages of Plunkett’s new, first ever L3C.

We had a great turnout and I was glad to see many colleagues there, notably Steve Rhodes of the Beachwood Reporter, Andrew Huff of Gaper’s Block and Gordon Waleck of LISC New Communities. Occupying the front row were Vivian Vahlberg from the Chicago Community Trust/Knight Foundation Community News Matters program and a few seats down sat Clark Bell, head of journalism programs for the McCormick Fundation.

I learned quite a bit. I could see Vivian — as well as a few others — very happily scribbling away. But I came away with the impression that we need to back up a few paces before we can host an informed and informative conversation of this type. Foundations, corporations, corporate foundations, and every other kind of entity in between, have very different reasons for giving money. And they have different pots of money that they give from. If we are going to ask for that money, we need to know what those pots are and what the foundation requires in return.

This is not the stuff journalist’s dreams are typically made of.

So it seems it’s time we define our terms, to see if they are terms the new news can live with.

That is one of many reasons that I volunteered to report and blog from the PRI Makers conference next week, a gathering of those foundations that make those elusive “Program-Related Investments” at the heart of the L3C model.

I’ll be Twittering as I go at hashtag #PRI10. Read along and learn with me.

L3C discussion at Community Media Workshop

I’ll be joining John Plunkett and Thom Clark in a discussion about the new L3C business structure and how it could be useful to new media orgs on Friday, May 7. Stop by and join the discussion.

I hope you’ll be able to join us Friday when The Chicago Community Trust’s Community News Matters program and Community Media Workshop host an informational session to discuss the L3C model and how it might benefit new news organizations looking for a more flexible method of organizing that differs both from standard business
incorporation and 501c3 nonprofit status.

When: Friday, May 7; Coffee at 8:30; program from 9-10:30
Where: Room 401, 600 S. Michigan Ave. at Columbia College Chicago

We’ll discuss what an L3C is and why some new news journalists have
been exploring it. Harborquest CEO John Plunkett, whose nonprofit
helped initiate the enabling legislation that created L3Cs in the
state of Illinois and was the first to use the new status, will talk
about how to take advantage of L3C status and how it fits into the new
wave of “social venture investing” in Chicago. Journalist and media
expert Sally Duros will talk about special considerations for news
outlets.

We hope you’ll join us to find out more about the new L3C model.

This event is free but please RSVP by emailing Maggie Walker at
maggie@newstips.org.

Vivian Vahlberg
Project Director
Community News Matters

The Web’s sublime promise for better journalism

Startups For Journalists

This is a great slideshow from Lisa Williams, founder of Placeblogger.

The Web will change everything about journalism and the bottom line will be more effective journalism, in sublime ways that we cannot see now. As Williams says, now “[Perpetrators of waste and corruption] will deny everything until you go away, but with the internet you can do better. ”

That’s because with the Web and tools that are being developed now, the story never goes away. It sticks. It grows. And it builds. This iterative quality and the technology that is being developed now can ‘effectively” make “the story” happen.

For me, it is time to read Susan Sontag’s “On Photography” again.

Hooray! This is just one of an excellent series of presentations that community foundation execs are being treated to at hashtag #infoneeds.

Sally Duros on Chicago Tonight, future of news and what’s happened since

After I wrote a series of articles for the Huffington Post on the promise of a mission-based news room L3C and the struggles of Chicago’s nascent news blogosphere I was invited to serve on a committee hosted by the Chicago Community Trust. With our input, the Chicago Community Trust in conjunction with the Knight Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation decided to develop a seed fund to fortify the city’s emerging news streams.

I was fortunate to land some consulting clients later in 2009 that lined up my work life squarely with my passion. That passion, to bring journalistic writing standards to the web and to bring the Web’s innovations to newsrooms – has absorbed my life for the past 20 years. I’ll be writing about that in columns to come.

One of my new clients was Andy Shaw, former Channel 7 news reporter and new Executive Director for Chicago’s Better Government Association. Together we developed a strategy and series of proposals for the BGA’s online presence. The other client is LISC-Chicago, whose anti-poverty and community development work is stretching the boundaries of community based multimedia. LISC-Chicago is also working in partnership with other news rooms like that of the Chicago Reporter and Catalyst to build a hyperlocal news bureau.

It was a year ago [March 31, 2009] that the Chicago Sun-Times declared bankruptcy and I was on a Chicago Tonight segment discussing the future of news in Chicago, the L3C mission-based newsroom and the state of the Sun-Times newsroom. Much has happened since then. The Sun-Times was bought by James Tyree and a group of investors. The Chicago Tribune unveiled its Chicago Now blog group. The Chicago News Cooperative, a “possible” news co-op and “maybe” L3C was unveiled. And Geoff Dougherty’s flagship NPO newsroom, The Chi-Town Daily News, closed its doors.

I have traveled extensively researching new media trends and surfacing ideas. I am still at it. There is more to come. And I am excited to share.

Why we needed this health care bill

Bloomberg's John Wasik sketches out the health care reform challenges.
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I’ve been listening to C-Span comments and following the online debate in the health care bill on this historic night. I’ve extracted some persuasive facts here from John F. Wasik’s book, The Audacity of Help. To learn more, Read Wasik’s columns for Bloomberg. I saw Wasik speak on health care reform last fall.

Also for first rate facts and context on the health care bill, check out the Watch it Live on the Health Care Summit by the Sunlight Foundation.

In early 2009, health expenditures consumed about 16 percent of U.S. gross domestic product.
Medical insurance claims 20% of media family income [source: New America Foundation.]

The majority of large employers (those with more than 200 employees) offered health care, slightly less than half of the smallest businesses did.

Employees paid an average $3,354 out of their own pockets for medical expenses in 2008.

[In 2008, Americans] were spending $650 billion more more on medical bills than countries with comparable wealth. That’s twice as much as we spent on food in 2006, and more than China’s citizens consumed altogether. [source: McKinsey Global Institute.]

The current patchwork system is unsustainable. Unless the growing bite of health costs is addressed by 2017, health care spending will double from 2007 levels, consuming one out of every five dollars produced in the United States. [Government Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services.]

from The Audacity of Help by John F. Wasik

Sunlight Foundation to announce new campaign March 18

WASHINGTON, DC – The Sunlight Foundation will kick off a national campaign for transparent government this THURSDAY, March 18, 2010. The “Public=Online” campaign will be an ongoing effort by the Sunlight Foundation to harness public support for accountability and transparency to build a grassroots movement that works to hold elected officials accountable on the local, state and federal level.

The campaign will be launched at a panel discussion that will include some of the leading names in government, the media, think tanks, the political parties and citizen activism groups. The panel will be held at Google’s Washington, D.C. offices located at 1101 New York Avenue, N.W. starting at 2:00 PM.

Where:
Google D.C.
Second Floor
1101 New York Avenue, N.W. (Entrance on Eye Street)
Washington, DC 20005

When:
Thursday, March 18, 2:00 – 3:30 p.m.

Who:
Guest speakers include:
Jake Brewer, engagement director of the Sunlight Foundation
Mark Tapscott, editorial page editor of the Washington Examiner
Jose Antonio Vargas, Technology & Innovations Editor at the Huffington Post
Ginny Hunt, Head of Google’s Public Sector Lab
Ryan Hopkins, Public Square Project
And a representative from the federal government
The Sunlight Foundation is a non-partisan non-profit that uses cutting-edge technology and ideas to make government transparent and accountable. Visit http://SunlightFoundation.com to learn more about Sunlight’s projects, including http://PoliticalPartyTime.org and http://OpenCongress.org.

Boundary spanners – employees of the future?

From the Financial Times:
“Gratton’s varied cv has inspired her distinctive approach. She believes that “boundary spanning”, as she calls it, is vital. Part-academic, part-consultant, part-businesswoman – she draws on her different experiences and networks to make connections that are not visible to everyone.”

More and more of us will have work histories that enable boundary spanning. Individuals who have had one kind of job for decades might not understand the value of boundary spanners and be suspicious about their motives and question their ability to contribute. But, in my opinion, those holding this narrow POV will disappear long before the boundary spanners do.

FT.com / Columnists / Lunch with the FT – Lunch with the FT: Lynda Gratton.