Can journalism funded by private generosity compensate for the decline of the commercial kind?

J-Lab, a journalism think-tank at American University in Washington, DC, estimates that American foundations have donated at least $250m to non-profit journalism ventures since 2005.

The trend is spreading to other countries, including Australia and Britain, where regulators and politicians have fretted about the decline of old-fashioned media without doing much about it. Money from the David and Elaine Potter Foundation is funding the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ), based at City University in London. Iain Overton, its editor, reckons that many traditional outlets lack the forensic skills, as well as the cash, to crunch data and hold the powerful to account.

Several American local papers, one of the most fragile parts of the industry, have been taken over by rich businessmen. Some of Britain’s upmarket dailies are scarcely commercial. The loss-making Guardian is run by a trust (which also owns the moneymaking Auto Trader). The Independent was saved by a Russian billionaire. Some might call that philanthropy, too.

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Nonprofit News Groups Considering a Merger

The Bay Citizen was launched in 2010 with grand ambitions, $5 million in seed money. The Bay Citizen is considering a potential merger, according to people involved in the discussions, a move that could see the publication absorbed by an older but similar nonprofit news organization in Berkeley, and raising questions about whether the founding patron’s vision for a revitalization of Bay Area news reporting can survive him. The unexpected death of Mr. Hellman left The Bay Citizen without its founder and benefactor. In September, the news organization’s founding editor-in-chief, Jonathan Weber, resigned abruptly. People involved with the discussions stressed this week that no merger agreement has been reached, and that the legal and financial logistics of combining two California nonprofit organizations, both of them regulated under section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Service code, are daunting. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/business/media/nonprofit-news-groups-considering-a-merger.html?_r=1&ref=media

Gains for NPR Are Clouded

The Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism will issue its annual State of the Media report on Monday, and you will be unsurprised to learn that journalism remains in broad retreat.

News is still on the march: for the first time ever, more people consumed their news on the Web than with newspapers. That’s great if you’re building an app, but not so great if you’re one of the legacy media companies struggling for relevance. In terms of audience, television networks slipped 3.4 percent, newspapers were down 5 percent, radio fell 6 percent and magazines were down almost 9 percent.

Amid all that creative destruction, there was a one large traditional news organization that added audience, reporters and revenue. That unlikely juggernaut was NPR. According to the State of the Media report, NPR’s overall audience grew 3 percent in 2010, to 27.2 million weekly listeners, up 58 percent overall since 2000. In the last year, its Web site, npr.org, drew an average of 15.7 million unique monthly visitors, up more than five million visitors.

Read more at the New York Times

Center of Nonprofit Journalism

The San Francisco Bay Area’s new growth industry: the non-profit news organization. In the new model, nonprofit news organizations sell their stories to multiple partners — newspapers, radio and television stations, blogs, and hyper local news sites — rather than to just one news organization. In a significant shift, traditional media outlets that once would have been phobic about printing and article that was not produced by their own staff writers are now running pieces executed by these third-party vendors.

Instead of relying on advertising for revenue, the old-fashioned way, these groups raise funds from foundations, businesses and individuals. In addition, they sell the journalism they produce.

The Bay Citizen, which is underwritten by a $5 million grant from Warren Hellman, a local businessman and philanthropist — and which is currently gearing up for it debut — will provide coverage of the area primarily available on its own website and also in the local pages of The New York Times. San Francisco Public Press, which started a year ago and soon plans to put out a newspaper. Spot.Us, a site that raises funds for journalists to do specific stories.

Read more at the New York Times.