Saving the News, if Not the Newspaper

There is much wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth in the world of corporate print journalism. And for good reason. For 100 years, newspapers have been great at making profits for their owners, many of whom have merged and become large media companies with shareholders to satisfy. In the past 10 years, however, the Internet has gutted profit margins at newspapers as advertisers and classified ads move to the Web. Many industry watchers guess that the future of journalism will be digital and decidedly nonprofit, much like public radio and public television.

No revenue-producing Web-based system has yet done for online news what the iPod and iTunes have done for music.

It seems fitting then for a charitable foundation formed long ago with profits from a big newspaper company, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, to be donating $15 million to help online news outlets pay for investigative reporting that they have difficulty supporting financially.

According to The Miami Herald, a paper that is itself in rather financial hot water, quotes Knight Foundation spokesman Marc Fest as saying that "grants, some ongoing, and others new or yet-to-be announced, will promote new economic models for in-depth reporting on digital platforms."

The Herald also quoted the Knight Foundation's vice president for journalism, Eric Newton, saying that "investigative reporting is the most important kind of news in the public interest." He noted that the Knight Foundation has made more than $400 million in journalism grants since 1950.

Some of the recipients of new grants include the Center for Investigative Reporting, to launch a collaborative investigative reporting project in California among print, digital and student journalists; the Sunlight Foundation, to develop Web tools so readers can get information on Congressional lawmakers' voting records; and, ProPublica, to help this nonprofit investigative reporting organization figure out ways to make enough money to support itself.

Newspapers may be going the way of 8-track tapes, but journalism, it seems, will continue to live online, with a little help from its friends.