Nonprofit news in CT grows as legacy media shrinks
HBJ PHOTO | Gregory Seay
Connecticut Mirror Editor Claude Albert, seen in the Mirror's newsroom in the State Capitol press office, is proud of his staff's journalism and bullish on the organization's future.
Jerry Franklin, president and CEO, Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network
Nonprofit journalism in Connecticut is alive and well, even thriving, according to some industry representatives, whose focus on independent, watchdog journalism is attracting more audience and revenues, the latter of which are plowed back into the journalistic mission rather than shareholders' pockets.
Still a relatively young field — excluding Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network and its stable that includes WNPR — nonprofit sites like The Connecticut Mirror and New Haven Independent that emerged to fill what they saw as coverage voids in key areas left by so-called legacy media are bullish on their futures.
“I'm really pleased with the way it's going,” said Claude Albert, editor of The Connecticut Mirror and a former managing editor at the Hartford Courant. “I think editorially, we're doing coverage that makes a real difference in the state of Connecticut.”
The Mirror's prime focus areas include politics, the state budget, education, health care and the environment, covered by former reporters from the Hartford Courant and other state newspapers. They also have a Washington D.C. reporter.
The Mirror's content is often picked up by legacy media outlets that rely on the coverage in the face of shrinking newsrooms.
Increasing page views
Albert said page views for The Mirror and two newer sister websites, CT Viewpoints and TrendCT, rose more than 25 percent last year. Alone, The Mirror also posted double-digit increases, but at a lesser rate than the group, he said.
“I think we've become very useful and have become a good part of the stream of good journalism that's done in Connecticut,” Albert said.
Launched in 2009, the Connecticut News Project Inc., which publishes The Mirror and sister sites, reported its highest year for revenues in 2014 ($1.2 million), according to IRS filings, and 2015 will be comparable and in the black, according Bill Cibes, co-president of the project's board.
Returning a profit
The Mirror's last six IRS filings showed half with revenues exceeding expenses, including a $331,735 margin in fiscal 2014. The three prior years, The Mirror lost money, but early grants served as reserves helping avoid any fiscal stress, Cibes said.
“The best practice and one we try to follow — the expenses for each year are matched by the revenues for that year,” Cibes said. “We've been pretty successful in following that model.”
The Mirror continues to enhance its product and grow, he added.
“We started off with the intent to engage the citizenry of Connecticut with journalism that matters and we continue to do that,” Cibes said, noting increasing readership, reach and influence as other media pick up Mirror stories.
Question of longevity
A key question that remains, however, is longevity. Nonprofit news sites, which have grown in number across the U.S. in recent years, face the stiff task of finding revenue opportunities beyond just grants, which account for a majority of their budgets but also can be fleeting.
A 2013 study by the Pew Research Center said many nonprofit news organizations were working to diversify their revenue streams, but were struggling to find the time or resources to do it with such limited staff.
Cibes said about 5 percent of The Mirror's revenues come from syndication fees charged to other media that use its content; 5 percent from advertising; 10 percent from individual donations; 10 to 15 percent from sponsorships; and the rest from grants.
Nonprofit radio
Jerry Franklin, president and CEO of Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network, the parent company of Connecticut Public Television and WNPR, also is optimistic about the future.
“Business is booming for us,” Franklin said, citing double-digit audience growth last year and strong revenue gains. The nonprofit reported $19.6 million in revenue in fiscal 2014, up 8 percent from a year earlier. Its $1.4-million margin was largely flat from 2013.
The audience growth includes the combined operations of radio, online, “What's On!” magazine supplement and CPTV, which includes CPTVKids, CPTV Sports and CPTV4u.
“And much of the audience growth … came from our news focus, whether it's John [Dankosky] or Colin [McEnroe's] show or Faith [Middleton's] foodie followers,” he said. “We've made a conscious effort to continue to invest in journalism here.”
“We clearly are trying to take advantage of what some of the commercial stations are not doing,” Franklin said. “When I first came to town 30 years ago, there were several radio stations with a really robust local news team and we know what's happened to those stations — they're no longer doing local Connecticut news, but we're trying to fill that void.”
The newspaper industry has been hit, too, said Franklin, who reads four papers a day and is a strong proponent of their importance in society.
Hungry for news in CT
“People are still hungry in Connecticut for real news, unbiased … as much as humanly possible unbiased news,” he said. “Yes, we have a good product, but we are trying to take advantage of some of the weakness in the marketplace.”
CPBN is serious about nonprofit journalism in the state, he said, noting investments locally in the news product and CPBN's plan to expand its reach beyond the Hartford-New Haven marketplace.
CPBN is working to open an innovation center in South Norwalk that will include a news bureau. Helping support that bureau and CPBN's other community engagement there will be South Norwalk-based Palace Productions, a for-profit company CPBN acquired last year, creating a joint venture called Palace Productions MediaVision. The new company offers strategic marketing communications, design and media production services to businesses.
Revenue from Palace will help pay the rent for the South Norwalk location and support CPBN's community engagement, which includes the news, plus education and veterans training programs.
CPBN also is forming an association with the Stamford Innovation Center to develop the South Norwalk Center for Innovation, essentially an incubation space for individuals or startup companies who could “live” with CPBN and receive administrative support, graphics services and the like, in return for a piece of equity in the company. As those companies become profitable, profits would be invested into CPBN community engagement in the area, including the news, Franklin said.
The center, which Franklin hopes to open in summer or early fall, would help the economy by growing new companies while helping support CPBN's mission and expand and strengthen its ties in the state. He believes the model is a first in his industry.
“Public media's had 50 years now, in some markets 60 years, of developing a rapport, developing a reputation, so people trust us and we take that very seriously and since we don't have profit demands on us, a good year for us is break-even,” he said.
The founder
Paul Bass is the founder and editor of the New Haven Independent, an online news site launched in 2005 that is part of the Online Journalism Project, a nonprofit he founded promoting professional, “hyperlocal” news sites online. It is funded through grants, sponsorships and donations.
The project has gone on to help launch sites that include the Branford Eagle in 2006 and Valley Independent Sentinel in 2009, covering the lower Naugatuck Valley. Last August, the Independent launched a nonprofit community radio station in New Haven, WNHH, a low-power FM station at 103.5 that shares Independent news, staff and its newsroom, and is available in formats that include on-air, streaming on the web and podcasts. The station also is a partnership with the Spanish paper La Voz, which shares an office with the Independent.
His site gets about 150,000 unique visitors a month and Bass sees radio as helping fuel growth.
“We're not looking for fast big growth, it's always been a steady march,” Bass said. “We care more about the difference we make than the metrics.”
CT News Junkie
Doug Hardy, business manager for the online site CTNewsJunkie.com and partner in the site with his wife and editor, Christine Stuart, who bought the site in 2006 (a year after its launch), credits the Online Journalism Project and Bass for their early support of NewJunkie, which is for-profit.
CTNewsJunkie's coverage includes state politics, public policy, courts and health care, and averages just less than 200,000 page views a month and about 50,000 unique visitors a month, Hardy said.
It didn't sell an advertisement until it began emailing a weekly newsletter about eight years ago, he said. It also sells its content, seeks voluntary subscriptions, holds reader fundraisers and sells listings in its professional directory.
“At the end of the day, the connections that you make with businesses, or foundations or other funders are really the magic button to bring in revenue,” Hardy said. “You have to make connections whether it's for-profit or nonprofit, you still have to sell.”
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