Strategy for the sector that never had a Golden Age

We worked with 50 publishers this year. Here is what we learned.

Independent, digital media has probably never enjoyed a true golden age.

There were moments of promise, scattered waves of optimism, and periods when new technologies or funders unlocked brief surges of growth. But the deeper reality, especially for small and medium-sized outlets, has always been shaped by fragility, dependence, and constant improvisation. Sustainability was more aspiration than norm, and many of the organizations that survived did so through a combination of mission-driven stubbornness, creative patchwork funding, and sometimes an ability to adapt faster than their larger, slower peers.

Even against that backdrop, 2025 brought a colder, starker reality.

Much of the institutional funding that supported public-interest journalism over the past decade is being reorganized and often reduced. U.S. government-backed media programs have disappeared. European funding is mostly stable but no meaningful growth in sight before 2028. Emerging funders are moving slowly, cautiously, …