Comments on: Clay Shirky’s “second great age of patronage,” foundations, and journalism.

By: Non-Profit Journalism in Central America « New Media Journalism

Non-Profit Journalism in Central America « New Media Journalism — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 12:15:41 +0000

[...] These trends have inspired a wealth of analysis and punditry. “Nonprofit investigative journalism outfits are breaking new ground. Can they sustain themselves?” asks Jill Drew in the Columbia Journalism Review. Or an entire hour-long Diane Rehm Show dedicated to “Not-for-Profit Journalism.” In the American Journalism Review: “The Nonprofit Explosion.” On Radio Open Source: “$30-billion to save journalism.” At the International Journalists Network: Investigative Journalism 2.0. Perhaps the most catchy title: “All the news that’s fit to fund” by John Honderich. And what I believe is the best analysis of non-profit journalism I’ve read so far, Steve Katz’s dissection of “Clay Shirky’s ’second great age of patronage,’ foundations, and journalism.” [...]

By: I’m guest blogging over at Free Press this week « Maimonides’ Ladder

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 20:57:08 +0000

[...] Jeff Jarvis, prostat… on Sontag, reconsideredRick Cohen on Clay Shirky’s “sec…Cato Unbound »… on Clay Shirky’s “sec…Tom Lucci on A week on [...]

By: Rick Cohen

Rick Cohen — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 19:58:40 +0000

Steve: You’re raised important issues that I’m only just now getting around to addressing. There are a number of problems with the foundation model that even larger foundation-funded efforts such as what the Times is proposing or some of the smaller investigative units you cited will encounter. Foundations are very thin-skinned about writing and analysis that touches on their areas of interest, not to mention specifically on themselves. It doesn’t require a foundation telling an entity not to cover something, it becomes a matter of self-censorship, you know which foundations tend toward hypersensitivity and when to sidestep the topics that might jeopardize a renewal grant. I don’t think that the philanthropic sector which is not a model of openness and transparency (see the controversies regarding the foundations affiliated with state universities)is automatically a good fit with journalism that might have as one of its targets the control and distribution of tax exempt capital by grantmaking foundations.

By: Cato Unbound » Blog Archive » How Would We Craft a Subsidy?

Cato Unbound » Blog Archive » How Would We Craft a Subsidy? — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 20:30:33 +0000

[...] and of subsidy. (And let me cop to Mamonides Ladder’s complaint, quite correct, that I oversimplified the landscape of subsidy in my original post.) These new forms could involve anything from making it easier for virtual [...]

By: Laura McClure

Laura McClure — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 23:16:23 +0000

a lot of really interesting stuff to chew on in this post, steve!

By: stevenkatz

stevenkatz — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:28:17 +0000

Thanks Bob. Feels to me like we are at the very beginning of that process. I can see the logic of foundations playing an oversized role for the time being – things changing so rapidly and journalism on such shaky ground for the moment. But long term? Don’t see it. The question I guess is how long the “long term” is going to be.

By: Bob Calo

Bob Calo — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:01:31 +0000

I can’t help but think that this idea that ‘patrons’ will allow reporters to maintain their special status as heroes of democracy is a kind of self-delusion. We’ve lost the audience, we don’t have the marketing smarts to win it back. We don’t even have the editorial product to win it back. We’re not a particularly creative bunch. I’m sure that the Pacific garbage patch story will please enviros, but it’s a story that’s been reported in one form or another over the last ten years, and I hardly think that we will reach a tipping point because of it.

Rather than looking for one great grant to pay our salaries, we ought to bring same intensity to the search for a real market solution: one that pays actual salaries over the long term; one that rewards creativity rather than earnestness, and the social values of one foundation or another, one billionaire or another.