Retaining Independence and Fighting Lawsuits with a Membership Model

Once in office, Kurz declared that he would no longer meet directly with the press and dissolved the Federal Press Service, a hundred-year-old organization that acted as the main liaison between the media and the chancellery.

But, mirroring steps taken in Hungary and Poland, the Austrian government has most effectively starved independent media outlets via advertising revenue.

[Update: Kurz resigned in October amid a corruption scandal, but his departure is not expected to change the challenging media landscape in the country.]

How Government Influences Media With Ads

Many media outlets in Austria — especially those in print — rely on government advertising to survive. Skrabal told OCCRP that state-funded ads have become a key tool for the government to influence the media landscape. The decline in private ad revenues serves the government, Skrabal points out, because it can relay its ads and messages without competing points of view. [Update: DOSSIER is now running an investigative series that details the flow of government advertising to media outlets and how that may affect political coverage.]

According to an International Press Institute (IPI) report, the Austrian government’s direct ad spending in 2018 was roughly three times the amount of public subsidies to the press. Moreover, the IPI report suggests that outlets with a track record of favorably covering the government receive more ad dollars.

Accepting advertising was never an option for DOSSIER. To remain independent and solvent, Skrabal and his team started experimenting with a hybrid membership model in 2018, with the launch of a paid magazine running alongside their online content.
“When we started the organization in 2012, our goal was to publish everything online for free because our work is important for everyone to read,” remembers Skrabal.

The October 2021 issue of DOSSIER magazine — the first ad-free investigative magazine in Austria which focuses on “one topic per issue, thoroughly researched, grippingly told.” Image: Screenshot

But a few years ago, they began charging for content in DOSSIER magazine, the first ad-free investigative magazine in Austria that focuses on “one topic per issue, thoroughly researched, grippingly told.” All magazine articles are behind a paywall, while all other DOSSIER content is published on the website, free for all to read. People who donate to the membership program can read all articles, including from the magazine. “Our membership program really took off only after we instituted the paywall,” Skrabal says.

With the lawsuits firmly behind them, a robust, growing membership program launched, and plans to publish DOSSIER magazine four times a year, the end of 2021 looks very different from how the year began.

“We have a foundation for the future and are very encouraged that in a country where there is very little tradition of people paying for news, enough people are willing to fund honest, truthful journalism,” Skrabal says.

This article was originally published by GIJN member OCCRP on Medium. It is republished here with permission. Updates to the text were provided by OCCRP’s strategic communications officer, Lauren Jackman.

Additional Resources

Considering a Membership Model for Your Newsroom? There’s a Guide for That

SLAPP Fight: How Journalists Are Pushing Back on Nuisance Lawsuits

How Membership Saved Chile’s Investigative Newsroom CIPER

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project is an investigative reporting platform for a worldwide network of independent media centers and journalists, reinventing investigative journalism as a public good. OCCRP provides media outlets and journalists with a range of critical resources and tools including digital and physical security.