Key journalism funder considers becoming invitation-only

Twelve active calls and survival techniques for starving publishers in a post-grant, post-Meta, post-truth media landscape.

Welcome!

This week on the Media Finance Monitor:

• Conversations about media funding, publishing technology, newsroom leadership and more

• Civitates is considering becoming invitation-only

• Survival techniques for starving publishers in a post-grant, post-Meta, post-truth media landscape

• OpenAI strikes a deal with Financial Times while major US newspapers sue the company

• Three stories about the power of big tech over the attention economy

• Increasing trust will likely increase the propensity to pay

• 12 active calls (3 new)

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After considering some feedback, we have decided to adjust the format slightly. We will begin with news and analysis, followed by a list of active calls. On a separate note, our team is expanding, and you'll see contributions from the excellent Ioana Epure, the editorial director at PressOne in Romania. 

Launching a series of open conversations about media funding, publishing technology, newsroom leadership and more

The media landscape in Central and Eastern Europe is currently facing a "perfect storm" of challenges, including illiberal regimes, media capture, market failures, and disruptions from big tech, which are destabilizing an already fragile ecosystem.

A few of us, including Patrick Boehler, Boryana Dzhambazova, Cristian Lupsa, and myself, have been having regular conversations about how to address some of these challenges. While you’ll be shocked to learn that we haven’t found The Perfect Solution yet, we are keen to expand our circle and include more participants: journalists, newsroom leaders and media executives like yourself.

Over the next few months, we plan to organize four open online conversations. We will invite expert practitioners from the CEE region and beyond to share their insights and hear from some of you as well.

We have some ideas both about the most pressing issues and some of the people experimenting with interesting solutions, but we really want your input as well.

Would you prefer a conversation focused on compensation, bonuses, employee share options, and salary transparency, or are you more interested in learning how successful newsrooms manage performance reviews, feedback, and the advantages and disadvantages of 360 evaluations? Are you curious how newsrooms have managed their tech stack, or used audience research? Are you interested in how others have managed conflict and addressed newsroom culture?

These are just a few ideas. We would love to hear your thoughts.

Please consider responding to our eight-question survey here if you have four minutes.

Your feedback will help shape our discussions, and we will be sure to invite you to the series once it begins.

One of the best funds supporting independent journalism in Europe is considering becoming invitation-only

There have been some worrying rumors about Civitates considering becoming an invitation-only fund, and sadly, it seems like these rumors are true.

Civitates is a pooled fund where several funders contribute resources to support initiatives. Since funding independent media in CEE may be perceived as risky, some entities, such as financial institutions, may hesitate to support journalism directly due to concerns about alienating governments and state bodies on which they rely for permits, licenses and business. A pooled fund mitigates this type of political risk, as no single contributor is solely responsible for funding decisions.

Civitates is one of the best funds in the European scene. After a rigorous selection process, Civitates provided multi-year core support, awarded significant sums, maintained a reasonable reporting regime, and was attentive to the broader needs of its partners. (Disclaimer: I worked for the Hungarian digital news publisher Magyar Jeti Zrt. and crafted their successful proposal for Civitates in 2020.)

Civitates enjoys a strong reputation among publishers in Europe, and many were anticipating a new call for proposals in 2024, but sadly, that may not happen after all.

In the past few months, I have heard from several sources that Civitates is considering not issuing open calls and becoming invitation-only. Their recently published 2024-2028 strategy seems to confirm this shift:

“We proactively look for opportunities and partners to receive funding. We generally do not accept unsolicited proposals. Open calls focused on specific objectives and geographies might be launched during the strategy cycle: information about open calls will be published on the Civitates website and actively disseminated through Civitates newsletter and other channels.”

This is a very nice way of saying calls will not be open by default, which is quite disappointing.

The concern here is that Civitates, despite its extensive network, might miss out on innovative and deserving proposals. Not all great newsrooms in Europe (and especially in CEE) have the resources and time to build the network and visibility required to get an invitation. This could pose a significant barrier to otherwise excellent organizations and projects.

That being said, make sure to read the Civitates 2024-28 strategy document, especially the part describing their ideal partners. If you think you have the right profile, try to get an invitation. Civiatates is still an excellent organization to work with.

Survival techniques for publishers in a post-grant, post-Meta, post-truth media landscape

The International Journalism Festival in Perugia is probably one of the best places to build the visibility needed for a Civitates invitation. There is always an incredible density of interesting people, panels and projects, one can't swing a dead cat without hitting a table full of media types plotting a new initiative.

Most of the panel discussions are recorded and uploaded to YouTube, so we are going to recommend a few for you to look at.

Unlocking private capital to save independent journalism

This is a discussion between some very knowledgeable people about the benefits and challenges of involving private capital in media funding, especially comparing investment with grants.

Pros of private capital for media funding:

• Investors might be better long-term partners.

• Investments can significantly exceed the scale of grant funding.

• Investors often bring additional resources, networks, and expertise.

• Private funding offers the media more financial control than grants.

• Funders' priorities constantly shift, rendering grant funding unreliable.

Cons of private capital for media funding:

• It’s challenging to find investors willing to take on the risks and who understand the unique complexities of the media business. Independent media are controversial; it’s one of the reasons why government backed Development Finance Institutions (DFIs), prefer to avoid supporting publishers. That, and high profit expectations.

• Aligning fund structures with investor intentions is difficult; typically, the risks outweigh the returns in media.

• The decision to shift from grant funding to private capital can seem unjustified, particularly while grants remain available.

What went wrong between Big Tech and the News? And did anything go right?

Now, consider this scenario: an ex-Meta and an ex-Google executive sit together in front of a room full of journalists, fielding questions from the audience, including from the Nobel Prize winner Maria Ressa, known for her critical stance on platform companies. A recipe for an exciting (and potentially explosive) session.

The discussion highlighted the journey from the early 2010s when platforms encouraged publishers to provide content for free, promising this would help them build communities—which it did, allowing many small news publishers to emerge—to the adversarial relationship that exists today. In this relationship, when it comes to news, "Meta has left the building, there is nothing to repair," while Google is still in the game, working with publishers from a position of power, permanently having the upper hand over the news publishers.

The Recorder model: making investigations sexy and necessary

Last but not least, let's look at the success story of the Romanian investigative outlet, Recorder. They figured out how to turn hardcore investigations full of technical details—which might otherwise bore people to tears—into video stories so compelling that they generate memes, sell merchandise, and have brought the outlet €1.2 million in annual revenue, with more than 90% of that coming from their audience.

What's the secret to their success? Packaging.

It's not enough to be a good investigative journalist. If you only deliver stories that are impossible to comprehend, nobody will care. Recorder took inspiration from cinematography and transformed their investigations into high-quality, long-form documentaries. These feature music, tension, and beautiful visuals that are so immersive that they sometimes make people "want to leave the country immediately" (and sometimes make people want to stand up against corruption). In times of apathy and news avoidance, these might be the most powerful reactions a journalist can evoke.

OpenAI strikes a deal with Financial Times while major US newspapers sue the company

OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, announced a deal with the Financial Times allowing “ChatGPT to pull information in real time from the FT’s published stories when answering user prompts” Nieman reports. While the financial terms are unclear,  a similar arrangement reported by Bloomberg last December indicated that Axel-Springer is getting “tens of millions of euros for the right to use the media giant’s news articles and content to build its artificial intelligence systems”.

Felix Simon, one of the best AI-journalism researchers, raised some excellent points on his LinkedIn some of which which im going to slightly paraphrase here:

• Regardless of how valuable FT’s content is for training the ChatGPT, OpenAI seems willing to “pay off” big publishers.

• This may have something to do with the ability of large players, like FT or Axel Springer to launch meaningful legal challenges if necessary. Smaller publishers are unlikely to pose such a threat and may not get these sweetheart deals as a result.

• The divide and conquer strategy seems to work; chances of meaningful collective bargaining over training data between publishers and big tech are now probably zero.  

Following the announcement of the Financial Times partnership with OpenAI, Axios reported that eight major U.S. newspapers owned by Alden Global Capital are suing OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement. Alden, which owns numerous publications, could potentially bring more titles into the lawsuit. This legal challenge may be merged with a similar one brought by The New York Times. The lawsuits revolves around concerns over AI's use of copyrighted material for training, which has become an increasingly contentious issue as AI's impact on media and content industries grows.

On a related note, I strongly recommend this podcast interview with Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic by Ezra Klein. In it, they discuss many interesting (and unsettling) AI-related issues, including tech companies' responsibility to compensate publishers.

Three stories about the power of big tech over the attention economy

Here are three nominally unrelated stories that I believe show the kind of power large technology companies have over the attention economy and how these organizations use their influence.

Spotify exits the IAB - Spotify has decided to leave the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), a major global organization that sets industry standards for advertising formats and audience measurements in the digital space. Spotify likely believes that by developing its own formats and measurements, it can secure more advantageous deals. However, this move could harm the broader market by increasing fragmentation, potentially complicating matters for other players who rely on these standardized formats and metrics.

Google Publisher Center to stop allowing you to add publications - According to Search Engine Land, Google's decision to automate the inclusion of publishers in Google News could make the process even less transparent than it currently is, likely leading to increased confusion and difficulties for publishers. Google News remains an important traffic source for many digital publishers, and not having a say in whether they are included on the platform exacerbates their vulnerability. 

Google delays third-party cookie demise yet again - Google has postponed the elimination of third-party cookies originally scheduled for later this year until some time in 2025. The deprecation of third-party cookies was expected to significantly impact publishers, potentially costing the industry billions of dollars globally. This postponement, therefore, likely comes as welcome news for publishers, offering temporary relief and more time to adapt to impending changes in digital advertising revenue streams.

Increasing trust will likely increase the propensity to pay

The Nordic mega-publishing group, Schibsted, recently shared findings from a new internal study that explores the relationship between trust and willingness to pay for content. According to the study, there are four key drivers of trust:

The study identifies four key drivers of trust, the

• Credibility of the reporting process and the people behind it

• Credibility of the content

• The relevance of the content for the individual user 

• And the selectivity of the content stream

Schibsted posits that these attributes not only boost trust but also increase the likelihood that users will pay for content. However, factors such as user-friendliness drive usage rather than trust, indicating that different aspects influence users' engagement and their decision to pay.

Now here are the active calls, with the largest at the top.

Pan-European audiovisual reporting - EU affairs

• Who: European Commission

• How much: Up to EUR 8.000.000 

• Funding rate: 95%

• What is it for: Content production

• How long: 12-14 months

• Submission deadline: 24th of May 2024

• Eligible countries: EU member countries

Pan-European audiovisual reporting - Underserved languages

• Who: European Commission

• How much: Up to EUR 3.000.000