Leveraging solutions journalism for revenue growth
If media organizations produce solutions journalism, will they generate more revenue?
For over a year, I worked with a dozen newsrooms to answer that question. The answer, in short, is yes — with caveats.
To be sure, even a resounding “yes” would not, in and of itself, be the answer to the pressing revenue questions newsrooms face. What these newsrooms did find was that incorporating a solutions journalism approach into their reporting could have a positive effect on the bottom line.
Today, local news organizations, whether they are for-profit or not-for-profit, are adapting their business models by generating different types of revenue — tapping local institutions, businesses and, increasingly, readers in the communities they serve.
To do this, local news organizations need to rebuild their relationships with their audiences and demonstrate anew the value of local news for their audiences’ and communities’ well-being. Solutions journalism can help.
The Solutions Journalism Network is aiming to help news organizations improve their business prospects by improving the news ‘‘product’’ itself — the kind of information the news provides. Over the past few years, a subset of SJN partners have found that by varying their coverage with solutions journalism they can rebuild trust, increase engagement and drive impact and accountability.
Solutions journalism-related revenue is growing rapidly, and focusing on this reporting practice can help newsrooms attain their sustainability goals.
On the financial front, early results are also promising. Quantitative and qualitative evidence tell us this: Solutions journalism-related revenue is growing rapidly, and focusing on this reporting practice can help newsrooms attain their sustainability goals.
Consistent focus is critical, and amid the extraordinary challenges of 2020, the 12 newsrooms that formed the Solutions Journalism Revenue Project’s yearlong community of practice stuck with it.
Few people get the behind-the-scenes opportunity to observe and assist such efforts, and it was a privilege for me to do so this past year.
These takeaways rely mainly on the Solutions Journalism Revenue Project (SJRP), piloted thanks to funds by the Google News Initiative. But they also include relevant data and insights gleaned from other SJN partners.
You can read a full report here. Look for a related study and additional resources in the coming weeks.
Key findings:
There is value in focusing on solutions journalism while pursuing revenue growth, and particularly when fundraising. Institutional and individual funders, as well as business sponsors, are eager to support this reporting approach.
Nine of the 12 newsrooms in the SJRP (75%) generated $1,494,625 in new revenue related to solutions journalism between 2019 and 2021.
Across the rest of the network, SJN news partners generated an additional $1,205,590 tied to their solutions journalism in 2020.
There are a few reasons for this increase: 1) Before the Revenue Project, SJN wasn’t thoroughly tracking revenue related to solutions journalism. 2) As more newsrooms pursue this approach to reporting, it is also becoming an integral part of pitches to financial backers. 3) Many were successful in receiving a range of COVID-19 emergency grants.
For context, between 2013 and 2019, SJN tracked close to $2 million generated in revenue connected to solutions journalism across its entire network.
(Note: Revenue generated by solutions-oriented collaborative news hubs was not accounted for in these figures.)
Importantly, most of the revenue raised by participants was to support operational costs and larger editorial projects, not just solutions journalism.
While some said more evidence was needed to demonstrate effective strategies, all participants in the SJRP cohort expressed some confidence that solutions journalism can contribute to their ability to generate revenue.
By early 2021, six SJRP newsrooms (50%) were at an advanced level of incorporating solutions journalism into their reporting. They covered a range of topics (rather than a single issue area) and leveraged their solutions reporting to increase revenue and/or engagement.
All the SJRP cohort newsrooms report that they are “highly likely” to practice solutions journalism in the next year. In a survey filled out by 10 participants:
- 100% said solutions journalism provided a way to help improve their communities.
- 80% said solutions journalism was connected to audience engagement.
- 70% said solutions journalism provided accountability.
Revenue Project overview
During the Solutions Journalism Revenue Project (SJRP) pilot, we provided 12 local and regional newsroom partners with training, consultations and coaching in solutions journalism and business development from SJN staff and industry experts. There were a mix of newsroom-specific and group sessions, with cohort sessions focused on sharing insights into and experiences of best editorial and operational practices.
The project’s objectives were to assist partners in regularly producing high-quality solutions journalism stories and series and develop revenue-building strategies linked to this coverage.
In addition to receiving training and coaching from SJN staff and industry experts, 10 newsrooms received grants (averaging $8,000) to support their solutions journalism projects and operations. Another two agreed to join the community of practice without financial support.
Solutions journalism-related revenue
Below are the criteria SJN used to determine whether revenue could be associated with a dollar amount for each of the following revenue categories:
Look for a playbook covering each of these revenue categories in the coming weeks.
Grants and donor funding
A large majority of the solutions journalism-related revenue generated by newsrooms in the SJRP program and beyond came from a mix of community foundations and institutions regularly funding journalism as well as individual major donors. Philanthropic dollars typically represented the bulk of money raised.
For the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, funders explicitly asked that reporting projects be solutions-oriented. Flint Beat and Southerly said that grantors told them the commitment to solutions journalism added value to the application and that providing funding for this kind of reporting aligned with their missions.
For Enlace Latino NC, WURD and the Fresno Bee, solutions journalism was part of a broader pitch to funders seeking support for operational costs and editorial projects.
Sponsorships
Two newsrooms in the SJRP cohort, The Current and The Community Voice, reached out to local businesses and foundations to secure underwriting for solutions reporting projects. They corroborated the potential for success of a strategy that two other newsrooms in the SJN network (The Richland Source and Outride.rs) have deployed with positive results.
In 2020, The Current, a digital nonprofit publication in Lafayette, Louisiana, received $8,500 in sponsorships from local businesses to support its coverage of Louisiana’s developments in telehealth during the pandemic. The Community Voice in Wichita, Kansas, which serves the African-American community, created a solutions-driven reporting project called “The Criminalization of Poverty” and raised $5,000 in its first round of fundraising.
Both publications said that receiving sponsorship money for solutions journalism was a proof of concept they would seek to replicate and expand upon in the future.
There is a clear advantage to putting forward a pitch anchored in solutions journalism. Local businesses tend to want to support reporting that elevates the positive aspects of responses to issues affecting their community.
Sponsorship offers a relatively cost-effective way to generate revenue, requiring less effort than applying for competitive grants. Presenting simple documentation about a solutions-driven project to potential sponsors is a good starting point.
Reader revenue
Drawing a direct line between revenue from readers and solutions journalism — or any specific initiative — is time- consuming and technically challenging. Most often, evidence of reader revenue motivated by a particular initiative is anecdotal, as is the case here.
David Haynes, Ideas Lab editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, provided data for solutions journalism stories produced in 2020. On average, solutions articles performed up to 50% better than the sitewide average in converting a reader into a subscriber. Haynes noted that a few factors influence this performance, including timeliness, headline selection, social media activity and how the stories are displayed on the website, but it appears solutions-oriented pieces do relatively well at converting readers to subscribers for the Journal Sentinel.
While most newsrooms in the SJRP cohort established that solutions-oriented content is of high value for their brand and performs better, on average, than other forms of reporting, few have had sufficient resources to produce enough of this kind of reporting and to invest in developing reader revenue strategies around it.
However, a data-driven study about solutions journalism’s connection to audience loyalty and engagement shows the potential for anchoring solutions journalism into a strategy that can make readers open their wallets. We’ll share that next week, in Part 2 of this series.
Look for Parts 2 - 4 of this series in the coming weeks: 2) a study on the audience impact of solutions journalism; 3) how to signpost your solutions content; and 4) a toolkit to develop revenue strategies for your newsroom.
Alec Saelens is the Revenue Project manager at the Solutions Journalism Network. You can reach him through alec@solutionsjournalism.org.
