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Fighting for journalism and profitable news media
Salt Lake Tribune drops paywall | Positive News asks audience what they care about
Plus creator-led video app backed by News Movement company eschews infinite scroll
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Good morning from the team at Press Gazette on Monday, 1 June.
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🙏The Utah-based Salt Lake Tribune has taken an extraordinary leap of faith.
It has 32,000 paying digital subscribers and 7,700 print ones - with subscriptions currently providing around one third of its revenue.
Just over two weeks ago it switched off the paywall and instead suggested readers pay to become members and receive perks such as access to the archive, while keeping its core journalism free for all.
If this works it could light the way to a new financial model for local news across the world.
My theory is donation-based models (like that operated by The Guardian) are effective because they engage a different part of the brain. Whereas paywalls can irritate and invite a defensive response, donor messaging appeals to a higher purpose and tap into altruistic feelings. Donation-based journalism makes us feel better about ourselves.
We spoke to CEO and executive editor of the Salt Lake Tribune Lauren Gustus about how the new financial model for the title works and why they are taking this gamble.
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😁 Nonprofit status is a big reason why the Tribune can afford to make this move. In the USA, donors to nonprofit businesses benefit from tax relief on what they give - and this has opened up major new philanthropic funding for the Utah title.
In the UK, my understanding is that major tax benefits only kick in once a nonprofit has charitable status (something only a very few UK news organisations have managed to achieve).
The magazine and online newsbrand Positive News is structured as a Community Benefit Society, a form of nonprofit ownership that can also confer some tax advantages.
But instead of asking readers what it wants them to write about and what things they would pay for, Positive News is trying to find out what they care about. By finding out what its readers value in life, Positive News hopes to come up with a membership scheme that connects with them more effectively than via a conventional paywall retail relationship.
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📈 And finally, the company behind social-first media brand The News Movement has launched a new app that aims to take a slice out of a market dominated by Google, Tiktok and Meta.
SaySo provides a showcase for vetted creators to provide their personality-led video take on the day’s news. Unlike Tiktok and Youtube, everything is checked and creators are vetted before they can post to the platform. Its creators hope it can be the antidote to doomscrolling by offering users a choice of just ten videos per day in the main feed.