Photo Illustration by Erin O’Flynn/The Daily Beast/Getty Images
The plight affecting local news is arguably at its worst. Gannett has pivoted to reporters focused on Beyoncé and Taylor Swift months after it cut 6 percent of its news division. An ever-growing list of communities have become news deserts. National outlets such as The New York Times and Axios have launched targeted projects meant to bolster it, but even they cannot save the business models on the road to failure.
“’We’ve got to experiment with a range of different models before we find one that is really sustainable,” Alberto Ibargüen, the president of the Knight Foundation, told The Daily Beast. “You need for a fourth estate to be independent. You need for them to be able to resist the kind of pressure from government, from advertisers or even from powerful individual citizens. You need for them to be independent in order for this check and balance thing to work. And if they’re not economically independent, then how the hell are they going to be editorially and politically independent?”
Ibargüen’s foundation became an anchor investor last mont in Press Forward, a new initiative by a former Knight Foundation trustee designed to infuse local newsrooms with cash to cement their status as community pillars. The goal is to move away from business models that are advertiser- or subscription-driven. The $150 million investment is one of the final acts for the 79-year-old outgoing president, who announced he’d be stepping down earlier this year and remains committed to the foundation’s mission of an informed electorate.