Global Investigative Journalism Network (https://archive.gijn.org/tag/membership-model/)
Launched in 2008 with an innovative but untested business model, Mediapart has become a pillar of France’s media landscape and given a new lease of life to investigative journalism in the country. GIJN’s French editor Marthe Rubio explores how the site made a name for itself and how it managed to achieve economic independence.
Investigative journalists face extraordinary challenges, with legal and physical threats, growing surveillance, online trolls, and a financial model that’s all but collapsed. Now add to that a global pandemic and a backlash against democracy and independent media, and you can see our field is under tremendous pressure.
Sujag, a long-form digital investigative journalism platform in Pakistan, is committed to highlighting voices from the margins. With recent stories on child marriage, acid attacks, and why women from poor communities are finding it so difficult to access coronavirus vaccinations, Sujag’s editors proudly say their journalistic ethos prioritizes “siding with the marginalized” over neutrality.
DOSSIER, an Austrian outlet that is a member center of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, has been able to offset the financial challenges experienced by many media outlets in Austria — and combat a series of vexatious lawsuits — thanks to its membership program.
Even after the coup in Myanmar, Frontier Myanmar has continued reporting on socio-economic issues. Publishing deeply reported pieces has made them popular among their readers. However, the entire website is now behind a paywall and available only to paying members — rates that are high for an average news consumer within a country where roughly 37% of the people live below the poverty line.
For digital-first news outlets in Latin America, lessons learned from reader-funding experiments are being transformed into highly tailored membership programs that offer a chance at a more sustainable future. Independent, mission-driven or subject-specific news sites, in particular, are leading the way, converting close relationships with audiences into funding through editorially-linked, labor-intensive initiatives.
As part of GIJN’s new series, Making Investigative Journalism Sustainable: Best Business Practices, we are featuring a set of key tips from 10 leading journalists and experts from around the world who are either working to build viable organizations around investigative journalism or work as experts to support these enterprises. Here is Emily Goligoski, Senior Director of Audience Research at The Atlantic (US)
See videos from all 10 experts here.