Part Three: Reader and philanthropically-funded Black-owned media (June 22, 2020)
By: Saanya Jain
Tags: The Latest, Media, Journalism, Philanthropy

Part Three: Reader and philanthropically-funded Black-owned media (June 22, 2020)

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DIGITAL STARTUPS 2.0

Declining ad revenue has posed a challenge for the Black press, legacy and new publications alike. While ad revenue enticed a number of mainstream, white-owned companies to begin producing content specifically for Black audiences, more recent trends and tools have opened pathways for Black media entrepreneurs. This “second wave” has seen Black creators using podcasts, newsletters, and messaging services to reach audiences and while tapping into reader and philanthropic revenue.

Some Black outlets are leveraging both reader revenue and philanthropy. The TRiiBE, a digital site covering the Black community in Chicago is funded mostly by brand sponsorships, donations from readers through an Indiegogo campaign, with which it successfully raised $20,000 in 2018, as well as philanthropic support. Push Black, which reaches its audience of four million primarily through text and Facebook Messenger, also relies on donations from its subscribers as well as philanthropic support.

Few have turned to paywalls and subscription revenue. The TRiiBE explicitly eschewed the subscription route: One of its founders, Morgan Johnson, said, “We know, as Black millennials, we don’t want to pay for news. We made a conscious decision not to be subscription-based.”

The PLUG, a platform built from a successful newsletter covering the Black tech sector, has found a niche that has made a subscription-based model viable. It has thousands of free newsletter subscribers and hundreds of members paying $100 annually. Sherrell Dorsey, its founder, told The Idea that although revenue first came from advertising partnerships with companies such as Goldman Sachs, she quickly decided in favor of a subscription-based model in the interest of sustainability. Dorsey has accomplished this by turning The PLUG into an insights platform in addition to a news one, providing data indexes and reports on topics such as Black-Owned Venture Capital Firms a Tech D&I Executive Index.

Subscriptions have not been the only challenge, as the distribution of funds by philanthropy remains concentrated and unequal. A 2019 report by Borealis Philanthropy found that 40% of foundation giving went to just three newsrooms: ProPublica, Center for Public Integrity, and the Center for Investigative Reporting. The Racial Equity in Journalism Fund, which Borealis launched last September, aims to address this disparity by supporting news organizations run by people of color. More general funds, like the Facebook Journalism Project, have also prioritized outlets owned by people of color at times. In May, Facebook gave out $16 million in COVID relief grants; more than half of the outlets that were beneficiaries are published by or for communities of color.

However, these philanthropic funds do not necessarily solve the issue of start-up costs. Although MLK50, a Memphis-based nonprofit, is now supported by both of the aforementioned funds, its founder initially self-funded the publication with credit cards. The TRiiBE, too, started with no financial backing. Dorsey told The Idea that although she initially tried to pursue VC money for The PLUG, she received pushback, as many did not see the point in investing in multiple Black media outlets.

NOW WHAT?

Platforms like Medium, Patreon, and Substack have decreased the barriers to publishing. For example, MLK50 is hosted on Medium, while Coronavirus News for Black Folks, a newsletter written by Patrice Peck, uses Substack and aims to address the lack of coverage of the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Black Americans.

Whether these platforms can facilitate sustained support for creators of color or end up reflecting the racial and economic inequities in the rest of media remains to be seen. As of this writing, according to Substack’s ranking of paid publications, there is one newsletter written by a Black writer on its list of top 25 paid newsletters: Roll Call. Written by Austin Channing Brown, a New York Times-bestselling author, Roll Call started in February and costs $7/month.

Subscribe to The Idea, a weekly newsletter on the business of media, for more news, analysis, and interviews.