2 June 2023. On Thursday, 25 May, M100 has organised the online Q&A “How to run a journalism start-up?” With three founders and one editor in chief of three media start-ups.
Speakers were:
Julius O. Fintelmann, co-founder of “The European Correspondent“, which was only launched at the end of November 2022;
Florian Vitello, co-founder and Viktoria Franke, editor-in-chief of “Good News Magazin“, which aims to counteract the daily flood of bad and threatening news;
Matthias Bannert, co-founder and managing director of the online magazine “Medieninsider“.
The event was moderated by Sabine Sasse, Head of Programme of the M100 Sanssouci Colloquium.
GOOD NEWS MAGAZIN
Florian Vitello founded Good News Magazin together with Philippe Kramer on 22 November 2020. The reason for this is the “24/7 terror and tragedy frenzy and the resulting news fatigue of the public”, he said. “Whenever we turn on the news, it is very, very negative and does not empower us. Bad news makes us sick and creates stress, anxiety and depression.”
The team consists of the three founders and 40 volunteers.
Good News Magazin is available in print and digital formats, and the website now has 120,000 users a month.
The team also runs a podcast called World Rising with a very good conversion rate: 77% of listeners subscribe to the podcast.
Instagram: 116k, Facebook: 68k followers.
Their reach is very high with over 4 million people in some cases; not only their target audience and followers, but also a large number of consumers read their messages.
With their subscriptions, they have planted 392 trees and fished 2,507kg of plastic from rivers since November 2020.
The number of subscribers is growing, but: they currently only have about 1,000 subscribers.
Business and funding model:
Subscription model:
Digital €4.40/month = €52.80/year.
Premium version = printed magazine: 6,60 €/month = 79,20 € /year
Supporting membership: 12,00 € / month. If paid annually, the supporter saves 45 % = 144 € / year.
B2B:
1. sponsored content on websites and social media.
2. channel with branded content
3. advertisements
4. podcast ads
They work with small/local businesses. For this, a sustainable product or social impact that their target audience shares is key. They carefully select the people/businesses they work with. Example of a B2B partnership: ReHats, a four-piece folk-pop band from Freiburg im Breisgau.
In the current market situation, the USP is more important than ever, says Florian Vitello: Good News Magazine is not the only platform producing positive news, the competition is getting stronger. He says the team needs to think about the future, where it can position itself and remain innovative.
The next steps from Good News Magazin:
USP + Innovation: positive habit-forming media & planning a study on the impact of Good News;
Reputation: they have written a book called Good News: ‘How we learn to resist the tide of bad news’ to show people that they are not only doing good feeling content but also serious journalism;
New funding models: through cooperation + through trial and error;
Long term goal: into the mainstream! (as part of constructive journalism)
Staff: Most of the 40 volunteers are still in training and taking their first journalistic steps at Good News Magazin. The aim is to retain most of them and motivate them. And: to publish at least one journalistic, well-researched article every day.
Florian said: “You can’t present people with any good news and then leave them alone with it, we have to go further. We pick the good news and then ask ourselves what that means for the big questions of news value.”
According to a Reuters Institute study published last year, while 49% of Generation Z consume news – that also means 51 do not. “This is very threatening for us and all our colleagues,” says Florian Vitello. “Good News Magazine wants to win these people back with more positive and solution-oriented reporting. But you have to dig deep to find good news in this world.”
He and Viktoria Franke point to Hans Rosling’s book Factfulness, a plea for progress and the healing power of solid facts, which shows “that the world is getting better on the whole.” But following that as a medium, a news platform or the like, is difficult in times when most clicks get news that draws readers into a dark pond.” In the meantime, however, positive stories are sent to them by their readers, which the editors then follow up on..
THE EUROPEAN CORRESPONDENT
The European Correspondent was founded in November 2022 by Julius Fintelmann and Philippe Kramer.
“If you look at Europe, there is no real journalism that matches the level of unification in Europe,” Julius sums up their motivation. “There is good coverage of the EU and its institutions, but we don’t have media that go beyond the institutions and the borders of the Union and take a deeper look at the Balkans and Eastern Europe, two of the regions that are the focus of their coverage. This is a problem because if we want to achieve a European public sphere and a European public discourse of civil society, we need European media and European journalism that looks at the whole continent”.
One of the key elements of the European Correspondent is people on the ground. Most correspondents live in the countries they cover.
The team consists of more than 160 journalists from across Europe, from Armenia to Iceland, from Portugal to Estonia, who bring their local perspective.
The big public broadcasters have their correspondents all over the world, but they tend to look for stories that are relevant to their national audience from their national perspective,” says Julius. For The European Correspondent, he says, it is important to provide a local perspective from journalists on the ground and bring it to a European level.
The main product is a daily newsletter, which is “a great way to keep up with users,” Julius said. Each day of the week is dedicated to one of seven European regions and tells the most important story of the day.
Business:
The Rough correspondents work on a voluntary basis, although this will change over time. Most of them are students of journalism and political science, but there are also some experienced journalists working for large national media companies. Of the 100 people on board when the European Correspondent was launched, only about five have left in the last six months, says Julius, “which shows a great commitment from the staff”.
The staff work in a decentralised way with different regional teams that are very autonomous in their responsibilities and act independently and autonomously with their own editors and social media teams.
Funding:
Several sources of income are being sought for the future, the main one being institutional fundraising in the early years, eventually moving to a membership model. The newsletter will remain free to read, but members will receive certain benefits, such as access to community events.
Target groups:
The Erasmus generation, also decision-makers and politicians, especially people up to 35, 40 years old who have moved around Europe and identify themselves as Europeans.
They cover not only the main events that everyone writes about, but also the stories that no one else covers, but which are very important for understanding what is going on in these countries.
MEDIENINSIDER
Matthias Bannert, managing director of Medieninsider, stepped in at short notice for his co-founder Marvin Schade, who had to write an article about the surprise change of editor-in-chief at SPIEGEL. Medieninsider was founded in 2020 and is an online magazine for the media industry in German. They had to earn money from day one and work mainly with freelancers. The focus is on the transformation and digitalisation of the media industry.
Business model:
1. main income comes from subscribers;
2. advertising in the weekly newsletter;
3. individual products such as e-books and tickets for online and offline events.
They have also recently launched a job board for the media industry.
SUM-UP:
There are different funding models to finance a journalism start-up: B2B, subscriptions, institutional funding, applications to various foundations such as the Schöpflin Foundation, crowdfunding, etc. However, much of the funding on offer is project-related and not for the whole project/medium, which is still a problem when looking for financial support for young media start-ups.
Another possibility: business angels, who support start-ups and also media start-ups if the concept is convincing. Or seeking sponsorship from large companies (which, on the other hand, may question the independence of the start-up).
Good News Magazin’s experience is that business angels are very profit-oriented and focused on fast growth, which is why they have not yet accepted the offer to work with a business angel.
Florian said that journalistic start-ups show established media a way out of the crisis: “Although we are all struggling financially – we don’t have the financial power of the big media houses – the clickbaiting that many are doing is not sustainable. You don’t get long-term, consistent readers that way.
Another issue is the conversion rate. People want to read, but they don’t want to pay for it, they don’t want to commit as long-term readers, as subscribers for example. Another dilemma is that founders don’t want to take any advertising deals in order to maintain their credibility.
So it’s not easy to set up a journalistic start-up and get it off the ground – the biggest problem is funding. Therefore, it is important to network, to support each other, to exchange ideas regularly and to develop ideas on how to make journalism financially viable. In other words, founders need courage, energy, good nerves – and a good network.
A recommendable network for independent media organisations is:
On Reference – the European independent media circle, a self-organised network of (currently) 26 journalistic outlets in Europe.
– They are all part of the “new sector” of public, independent, (often) digitally native and (often) non-profit journalism, producing different types of journalism (investigative, community, factchecking) in many different forms (audio, text, images).
– Members exchange views on non-editorial issues such as financial sustainability, project management, legal issues and human resources.
– The exchange is informal and personal – it is a group of like-minded CFOs, directors and managers who reach out to each other when they need support, advice or help.
– At the same time, they support and initiate research on the ‘new sector’ to gather and disseminate insights that can be valuable.
– They are also trying to change the picture about the best way to fund our sector, focusing on infrastructure funding and capacity building rather than (editorial) project funding.
– From 2024, On Reference is again open to new members – contact info(at)referencecircle.eu if you are interested.
