WaPo’s Jennifer Rubin talks about the quasi-competition:
However, there is a part of the news ecosystem that seems to be growing by leaps and bounds: nonprofit news, especially the juggernaut ProPublica, which has been responsible for buckets of scoops that for-profit media have missed.
How do they keep it local and, thus, relevant?
Moreover, ProPublica has pioneered an inventive partnership with local papers all over the country. ProPublica provides an enterprising investigative reporter with salary for a year plus the infrastructure necessary to report the story, including editors, research assistance and lawyers.
If this is true, then it becomes very promising in my eye.
It has partially filled the demand for local reporting that has resulted from the brutal realities of the newspaper industry’s consolidation. But it has also found relevance by being serious and focused, instead of giving way to many legacy media outlets’ impulse to lure back readers with games and frivolous lifestyle columns.
Money has to be part of the operation, of course, but this model of journalism may be better at limiting the influence of money on reporting and news sites than that used by, say, WaPo.
