{"id":215007,"date":"2020-03-18T11:48:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-18T15:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lionpublishers.com\/?p=215007"},"modified":"2021-07-02T11:52:59","modified_gmt":"2021-07-02T15:52:59","slug":"introducing-project-oasis-a-guide-to-help-founders-launch-sustainable-local-news-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lionpublishers.com\/introducing-project-oasis-a-guide-to-help-founders-launch-sustainable-local-news-businesses\/","title":{"rendered":"Introducing Project Oasis: A guide to help founders launch sustainable local news businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The need for good, accurate information for local communities has never been more clear<\/a>. LION Publishers is filled with more than 200 members because they saw the need in their communities for news and information. They\u2019re not alone; based on what we know, more than 800 digital local news sites exist in the U.S. and Canada. So you\u2019d think there\u2019s plenty of information about how to get started, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There isn\u2019t. And for aspiring founders, it\u2019s been a problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI would turn to resources like my local startup community and Harvard Business Review\u2026 the issue with those is they aren\u2019t about journalism ever and our industry is so specific and weird that you can take some learning from those general startup things, but it\u2019s not enough,\u201d said Becky Pallack, who co-founded #ThisIsTucson at the Arizona Daily Star.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re changing that with Project Oasis<\/a>, an initiative from LION Publishers, the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media\u2019s Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media (UNC CISLM<\/a>), Google News Initiative<\/a> (GNI), and Douglas K. Smith<\/a>, the driving force behind Table Stakes, the Media Transformation Challenge, and a small library of performance and management books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ultimate goal of this project is to produce a guide to help entrepreneurs start local news businesses, and existing local news startup founders learn from the successes of their peers. This guide won\u2019t be prescriptive; we won\u2019t favor one tax status over another; we won\u2019t mandate that success equals using any particular CMS; we won\u2019t declare that financial sustainability can only come via the use of programmatic advertising or paid referral services. The reality is we need to try to learn from as many approaches as possible, because every community and business problem is different and our tools and platforms are rapidly changing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To begin to establish a set of best practices, we will exhaustively research how the most successful efforts in the independent digital-native local news business got there. By exploring and explaining the decisions local publishers made, we\u2019ll point to pathways that can be taken on the way from launch to growth to sustainability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our First Step: Surveying the Field<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are reaching out to more than 800 local digitally-native news publications in the U.S. and Canada to collect and share data about their editorial strategies, audience reach, revenue mix, and how they define their sustainability so we can analyze trends and best practices across the industry. (Given that LION has several Canadian members and there\u2019s a growing interest from Canadians in the independent local news model, we\u2019re expanding our research scope.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re fortunate to build upon Michele\u2019s List, a database that Michele McLellan created 11 years ago as a fellow at Reynolds Journalism Institute and that LION has helped contribute to since. We\u2019re grateful that Michele will be bringing her valuable historical knowledge of surveying local digital news startups as an advisor to us on this project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you are a local, independent, digitally native publication in the U.S. or Canada, fill out this survey<\/a> by end of April and you\u2019ll be entered to win either a free registration to the 2020 LION Summit<\/a> for independent news publishers in Seattle or one-on-one time with local news consultants through LION\u2019s newly created LION Expert Network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alongside the survey data we collect for our public database, we\u2019ll be conducting in-depth interviews with these founders about the crucial choices they\u2019ve faced in starting, running, and in some cases, shutting down their businesses. Who did they hire first? Do they distinguish between fixed versus variable costs in making strategic decisions? If they aren\u2019t currently sustainable, when do they expect to reach sustainability, and based on what factors? If they had to pull the plug, how did they decide when to do it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By teasing out the \u201cwhy\u201d behind these answers, we\u2019re hoping to produce benchmarks that help inform new startups\u2019 decision making.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a spectacular idea and project, and hugely useful for almost every journalist I can think of,\u201d said Ted Alvarez, a Seattle journalist who runs a podcast business on the side. \u201cIt\u2019s been fascinating to me that there\u2019s been a gap between journalists wanting that stamp of approval from established organizations and yet all the tools exist for you to make your own journalism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s plenty of information online about starting a business, but not anywhere near enough about starting a local online news business. Project Oasis will change that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What We\u2019ll Make<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Programming director Anika Anand will be leading the work for LION with help from our new communications and membership manager, and will bring in additional help as needed. We\u2019ve already started work on Project Oasis, which will result in the following resources for existing and aspiring entrepreneurs in local news. This is not an exhaustive list \u2014 we also want our research and interviews to help inform other useful resources for digital local news entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n