Yet Jimmy Finkelstein, who owned he Hill when it was centrist, thought he could do it again, and had enough connections he could raise $50 million. Yet instead of spending that The Messenger money wisely, he threw big salaries at journalists who are economically conservative about their own funding even if the majority espouse the benefits of socialism - and weren't going to join any start-up unless the money was big. As in ProPublica money.
Ten months later the worst kept secret in media is officially out - $50 million gone.
Here is advice from someone who made a successful media group without $50 million. Only do something like sports if it is user-contributed. You will not get traffic as a start-up hiring journalists.
They're not alone, corporate media is in contraction. The majority of journalists spend a lot of time talking about unionizing and engaging in progressive good works, but the downside to being partisan is that you lose half the audience automatically. And you lose a lot of your own audience because they know you're not doing journalism. Then advertisers stop giving you money directly and give it to Google, Facebook, and Twitter, where they can reach all the people they want and not just your tribe.
The lack of trust in corporate journalism - the fourth estate is now down near Congress and lawyers in public trust - impacts groups that want to do good journalism and think they can buy growth. They go into a dive spending heavily, thinking they are building up airspeed, and most often they just crash into the dirt.
Comments