With the explosion of local journalism startups, how many will survive? That’s a good question, and Alan D. Mutter over at Newsosaur has a harsh, but realistic assessment:
While I applaud these brave and commendable efforts, I fear a good many journalistic entrepreneurs are doomed to fail…. After talking to one enterprising journalist after another, I have found almost uniformly that they are making the mistake that has proven to be the downfall of many an entrepreneur: Instead of trying to build a business, they are trying to give themselves the job they always wanted.
Absolutely true. After all, the problem to solve is economics, not the news. And even though many journalist entrepreneurs intuitively know it, they lack the skill set and motivation to execute on it. There are too many gaps being filled by temporary grants and funding, masking the true viability of a model. Mutter is right: too many journalists are spending all of their time covering and presenting and innovating with the news, leaving no time or energy to innovate with revenue. And that will prove deadly.
As a journalist entrepreneur myself, the business challenge is what keeps me awake at night. It’s just as important to know how to help your local advertisers succeed as it is to know what news to cover. As Mutter suggests, a business plan is critical. So is finding people who have a nose for business and understand what it takes to make a startup succeed. This is the big problem to solve, and it won’t be easy.