Thread by @amywebb

1 - Journalists, foundations that fund journalism, publishers, city officials, venture capitalists/ hedgies who've bought news orgs, and people who care about democracy, we need to have a chat this morning.

Like, right now.

2 - Some of you were at #ONA17 and at the recent @knightfdn Media Forum, and you heard my catastrophic scenarios for the near-future of news. These weren't predictions. I don't make predictions.

These were plausible data-driven models showing where we were headed.

3 - The past few weeks have been brutal. Mass layoffs, consolidation, and announcements about dubious new job titles.

These are more signals that, I fear, have been falling on deaf ears. To wit:

4 - "A company with a reputation for downsizing newspapers takes over Texas’s capital city publication"

Cox Media Group made inscrutable investments into social platforms and video without running implication scenarios.

texasmonthly.com/news/new-media…

5 - The @DenverPost was forced by its hedgie owners to lay off 30% of its staff yesterday. That's after massive layoffs last year.

westword.com/news/denver-la…

6 - The @DenverPost's union pleaded with the hedgie owners, asking them to sell the paper rather than slowly decimate it.

westword.com/news/denver-po…

7 - The @chicagotribune also announced massive layoffs yesterday. I would urge you to read @davidfolkenflik's very smart take and explanation here -- and to listen to it as well.

npr.org/2018/03/16/594…

8 - Here's what's happening:

• Grantmakers aren't throwing their weight behind the research, development, and piloting radically new business models.

• News orgs don't have any humans left, let alone $$, to research, develop and pilot radically new biz models.

9 -

• Universities aren't mandating that communications students learn basic business fundamentals.

• Cities -- which ostensibly want quality news orgs to inform their constituents during this time of widespread misinformation -- aren't helping in any way.

10 - While everyone acknowledges that the business model has been dying since the 1980s, little has been done to radically change the business model for news.

Meantime, newspapers ceded distribution to third parties like Twitter, FB, Google, YouTube, and (God help us) Snap.

11 - Now more than ever in modern human history, we need quality journalism.

Now more than ever, we need quality journalists.

Now more than ever, we need trustworthy, actionable, informative news.

12 - But the time to take action on all of this was three decades ago.

If you think the past two weeks are an anomaly, or that you won't see more of the same in the coming year, you have your head in the sand.

13 - So here's what needs to happen across those constituent groups.

We no longer have the luxury of time. You can't wait until next year's conference for inspiration.

14 - Grantmakers: it's time to pony up operational funding, even if that contradicts your charters and rules. Give newsrooms some breathing room for the next 2 years.

15 - Grantmakers, during that time, do the following:

• Convene newsroom managers, up-and-comers, and high-quality, smart, biz execs w/ a successful track record who genuinely want to help. Have them do the R&D and develop radically different models for testing.

16 - Fund newsrooms to test those models. This process should take 2 years.

Then -- importantly -- fund scaling those models across other orgs.

17 - And THEN, fund the next iterations of R&D, testing, and deployment of those business models. Because the future is constantly in flux.

The problem is that there's been too much funding into storytelling formats and products. None towards this kind of work.

18 - Last thing for Grantmakers: Pay for newsroom managers to get MBAs (full or exec).

Better yet, establish an MBA program that combines traditional MBA coursework with emerging technology and journalism.

19 - Now, to the funders (VCs, PE firms, hedgies).

I know you want to make money. You have a right to make a profit. I want you to make that profit.

But I want you to do all of that while thinking critically about whether that money will matter 30 years from now.

20 - I'm specifically talking now about the boards of @tronc, MediaNews Group, New Media Investment Group... and those individuals who are major shareholders.

You have a fiduciary duty to your boards. And you have a moral responsibility to the citizens of the United States.

21 - I once heard a board member liken a newsroom to a baseball team. He said, and I'm paraphrasing here...

"You only need 9 guys on the field at once, so you don't need a roster with 50 guys to make a newspaper."

22 - So it turns out that I actually know quite a bit about baseball, because I grew up in the stands at Wrigley. I indulged his analogy, explaining that most teams have a number of pitchers and other players because of injuries, strategy, and rotation needs... but mostly...

23 - NEWSPAPERS ARE NOT THE SAME FUCKING THING AS BASEBALL TEAMS.

24 - If you're a successful investor in real estate, fin-tech, pharma, tech... that doesn't necessarily make you a successful investor and steward of a news media business. You're coming in with zero context. Your spreadsheets don't translate.

25 - But here's an argument you might actually listen to. Business likes stability. Unless you're *that* kind of investor, you don't like unpredictable volatility.

The best way to ensure volatility is to take away quality journalism within a community. Or a country.

26 - To the hedgies, PE firms, VCs and boards of newspapers:

By slashing and burning America's newspapers, you're putting your future financial positions at dire risk. If you want to keep making the profit that I think you have a right to earn, you need to stop.

27 - Last stakeholder group: humans living in America.

This is easy. It's time to start paying for your news. Your insistence that news is always free is part of how we got to now.

To be fair, not everyone can afford a subscription to the NYT or WSJ. I get that.

28 - So you have some options.

1. If you can afford to pay for news, you should.

2. If you can afford to pay for your news and someone else's news, you should.

3. If you can afford to defray the cost of producing news for your community, you should.

However...

29 - News orgs have to fix their payment and subscription models for this to work.

So, we've come full circle!

30 - To summarize:

• Media consolidation is happening, and that's bad for journalism.

• We need quality journalism, but we don't have radically different business models to support journalism in 2018.

• The best time for action was 1980. The second best time is TODAY.

31 - To everyone who's now sending me the 👇💪👏 emoji and who are reposting the thread with "read this"...

STOP.

Stop it now!

I don't want your support. I don't want your praise. I want your ACTION.

32 - I'd like to see tweets explaining what steps you're planning to take, and when you're planning to take them.

Less emoji. More action.