Online newspaper experiment in Seattle fails
June 29, 2009 · Filed Under Business Bytes
The Seattle Courant, an experiment in building an online-only newspaper in Seattle, has shut down. Keith Vance, who founded it, said it failed because he wasn’t able to get the project the funding it needed to survive.
To fund a newsroom requires a pretty sizable chunk of money. My goal with the Courant was to have two to three reporters working full-time and making a living wage, as well as, a copy editor and a secretary. To do that, I estimated that I would need about $500,000 a year (gross sales would need to be more than that since sales people and support staff need to be paid too, but they essentially pay for themselves). I would work for free for the first year or so….
So why did the Courant belly-flop?
The Courant failed because I didn’t have enough cash and I didn’t find someone who could handle the business side, such as finding customers, technologists and managing projects. The trick I had to pull off was to be able to fund the Courant while I not only built a newsroom, but also a technology firm to support it. I couldn’t do it all.
My advice to anyone who seeks to create something like The Seattle Courant is to make sure you have at least enough money to get you through the first year and someone who’s as committed as you are to the business. To generate revenue, focus your efforts on providing technology solutions to your customers and not just selling banner ads. You have to be able to do something that other people can’t, or don’t want to do. Going to city council meetings and covering press conferences counts as something people don’t want to do, but news doesn’t make money it costs money. One way to think of it is that instead of a print shop that supports a newsroom, we need to build a technology firm that supports a newsroom. It’s really not that different, it just requires a different skill set.
While I didn’t succeed, I remain convinced that real journalism will survive the transition from analog to digital, it’s just going to be scary for a bit.
