There isn’t yet a clear playbook for financial sustainability in creator journalism, according to a report published by the Center for News, Technology & Innovation (CNTI) on Monday.
To better understand the trends and challenges in the growing landscape, CNTI partnered with Project C — a research hub on creator journalism — to survey 43 independent information providers and creator-journalists in the United States. Twenty-six of the survey respondents also participated in in-depth interviews about their work. Nieman Lab readers will recognise some of the names here: Taylor Lorenz (User Mag), Kat Tenbarge (Spitfire News), Ryan Teague Beckwith (Your First Byline), and Barbara “Bob” Allen (The College Journalism Newsletter), among others.
The report, titled “U.S. Indie Info Providers: Professionally Diverse, Mission-driven, Sometimes Lonely, Rarely Earning Profit,” finds that while “indie info providers” increasingly see themselves as mission-driven small business owners, only five of the 43 respondents said they could “fully fund their lifestyle” with content creation income; just over 50% (23) said they “can’t fund their lifestyle at all” with their content. Less than one in three interviewees had a “formal or developed business strategy,” according to the report.
Like many journalists working in legacy newsrooms, news creators find their work meaningful and fulfilling, but they also worry about making ends meet and consider cash flow and managing finances to be some of their greatest challenges. Many of the creators interviewed said they rely on a mix of income sources, from freelance and consulting work to savings and support from a partner.
“Journalism isn’t immune to the larger trend of the gig-ification of labor,” CNTI senior research manager Jay Barchas-Lichtenstein told me. “Most people in the U.S. think that journalism is stably funded and that access to quality information should be a right. But instability in the industry is actually a big driver behind the indie trend. These trends are in tension: If you believe information is a public good, someone still has to pay for it. If something is valuable to you, find a way to support it financially. That’s especially true if you have the means to do so for people who don’t.”
Of the 43 survey respondents, 35 identified themselves as journalists. Many had previously worked as reporters in legacy newsrooms, others had held management positions in news, and some had no journalism experience at all. CNTI found that the news creators with only newsroom experience felt the least prepared when it came to business and operational management. Ten out of 26 interviewees had taken professional development courses to learn business skills.
Subscriptions, memberships and donations, and advertising were the most common revenue streams. Only a few respondents have found a “third pillar” to fund their content. “One sells software related to their reporting and uses some paywalled games to drive subscriptions, and the other serves as a broker for market research, connecting their professional audience to paid opportunities for a finder’s fee,” the report says.
Asking for money is also hard. Four interviewees cited imposter syndrome as a hurdle and felt as if other content is more deserving of reader revenue. Former journalists without business experience also struggle with pricing and marketing their work.
Monetizing content sometimes also conflicts with creators’ beliefs about information access. Some of the creators interviewed serve audiences that are less likely to have disposable income for a subscription publication, so they can’t rely on subscriptions or donations.
“News is so important it should not be gated…[but] news is not free to produce,” one creator said.
One of the most financially successful interviewees — whose publication serves a niche group of professionals — told CNTI that “Writing for a wealthy group of people is the only way at this point, as far as I can tell, to run a media business…90% of media businesses just write for upper-middle-class people if not just upper-class people.”
Other interesting findings from the report include:
Creators largely work alone, but rely on each other for support. Independent news and information creation is a growing field. Interviewees said they work long, intense hours, and often on their own. They look to other creators for inspiration and advice, and pay it forward when they can.
“I still dedicate a lot of time when people ask me about starting your own business or about being a solo in the newsletter world,” one creator told CNTI. “Because people did that for me and I have an ethical obligation to share that, especially now that I’ve been doing this a little bit longer.”
Maintaining a presence on multiple platforms is exhausting, but necessary. Most of the creators interviewed are active on at least three platforms to distribute and promote their work. They weigh which platforms to use based on multimedia offerings, audience preferences, and revenue potential. They described maintaining a presence on multiple platforms as time-consuming and “frustrating” but necessary so as not to become dependent on any one source for reach and revenue.
“Seeing what happened to Twitter, it was very clear to me that any tech company could implode that quickly,” one creator said.
AI has pros and cons. Some interviewees were concerned about audience use of AI as an information source. (At the same time, none of them “described using AI tools like LLMs as a distribution platform.”) Several used AI for business and production tasks, but almost none used it to actually create content. A few creators avoided AI entirely, and some were actively opposed to its use.
“I think that people should use their big brains, and you can put that in there,” one creator told CNTI.
Credit: .niemanlab.org
