The point of no return

Revenue streams that have kept media organisations hanging on by their fingertips include advertising, advertorials, subscriptions, crowd-funding, content licensing, events and creative production.

But I would argue these revenue streams fail to offer long-term solutions to the financial sustainability question.

This is because they can sway editorial content such that it fails to serve the interests of readers and respect the core values of professional journalism – truth, accuracy, fairness and accountability.

Adverts and advertorials have the greatest potential to come into conflict with editorial values because they aim to promote the best side of a product or brand, conveniently omitting what might come across as negative.

Editorial content, on the other hand, sticks to the facts and should have no vested interests preventing it from telling readers the full story.

An over-reliance on advertising revenue also pushes content to become increasingly tabloid, sensationalist and entertaining in order to boost readership, keep advertisers coming and advertising rates sufficiently high – all contrary to the values of quality journalism.

While you might think that getting readers to pay for the content itself would turn the tide, subscriptions and crowd-funding require many conditions to succeed. For example, you need a critical mass to accumulate enough money to stay afloat and the content must be unique enough for people to want to pay for it. With the advent of free content, it takes a rare publication to turn subscriptions or donations into a success.

Content licensing only works for news wire services capable of beating everyone else at gathering information first-hand. The market is already saturated with established news wires which have spent decades securing their foothold, meaning other news organisations can’t follow in their footsteps easily.

Events and creative production are completely unrelated to content and their revenue could be redistributed to fund editorial coverage. But it could also push editorial coverage to the sidelines, seen as a second-class citizen because it doesn’t bring in the bacon directly.

If the media fails to find a viable business model inside or outside (or a combination of both) of these existing revenue streams, editorial budgets and teams will continue to shrink. Journalists and editors who no longer have the time or resources to do real stories will write more soft branded content pitched by public relations staff, often ex-journalists who have figured out whose pocket the earned media money falls into.

The more soft branded content a publication publishes, the more it will erode its credibility, resulting in fewer readers and advertisers – the publication will effectively be digging its own grave.

If we can’t create a business model that preserves journalistic values while keeping the journalism business – and journalists’ livelihoods alive – then we are in real danger of losing news that keeps us informed of the truth and standing for what’s right rather than what sells.