With traditional media funding models in disarray, membership offers news outlets an alternative way of ensuring their profitability or survival. GIJN spoke to the Membership Puzzle Project’s Ariel Zirulnick about their latest guide and her top tips for organizations considering going down this route.
Media startups from the Arab world have had to battle censorship, lack of funding and unstable political environments. In a roundtable hosted by GIJN in December at the Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism forum in Jordan, founders of four startups shared their innovation tactics to survive and thrive, including renting out excess office space, training, events and paid newsletter subscriptions.
Paywalls, live events, special print editions, paid newsletters, the list goes on. From new editorial products to exclusive experiences, news organizations of all types and sizes are looking for new revenue streams. Paula Montañà Tor offers six questions that you should consider before launching a membership program.
The old news business model has been serving advertisers and investors at the expense of the most important people in the media equation — the public, the readers, the users. But now that digital media have broken up that arranged marriage of advertising and news content, publishers are rediscovering the importance of focusing on serving readers.
