Revenue Streams For Independent Media: A Look at Advantages and Disadvantages

Independent media often struggle with finding a way to keep themselves funded, especially when they are less popular and less likely to have a large amount of money on hand than mainstream news media. They often seek money through three ways- advertising, fees or donations, and try to search for a fourth.

Requiring people to pay for access to the publication is the most reliable way of raising money, as it results in the publication not being beholden to any individual or organization. While the publication would need to constantly work to expand its reader base, that is a goal it should already be following, assuming that it is doing so by articles that convince people that it is an interesting and informative publication. While any of the articles that happened to offend individuals or groups of people would result in the magazine losing viewers and money, the effect would only be proportional to the number of people offended, thus lowering the risk for publishing a controversial article. While this stream of revenue potentially results in the publication pandering to readers, publishers can avoid this by staying with the style that enabled the publication to initially gain popularity.

Advertising has long been a supplemental source of income for publications, but potentially opens the publication to conflicts of interest. Advertisers can bring in significant amounts of money to the publication, but often only continue featuring their ads if they have favorable coverage. They often realize that the publications need the money they pay for their ads than they need the exposure the advertising contract gives, and thus use their leverage to force the publications to suppress stories that portray them in a negative light. This results in the publishers realizing that while they may lose viewers if they compromise their principles, the advertisers have greater sway, and thus censor their reporting and betray their ideals to stay in business. Advertisements can be helpful as a supplemental source of revenue, but they should not be an independent media publication's only source, or even its main source. Independent media not only must stay financially solvent, but remain independent from outside influences, and cannot rely on a single source of revenue.

Donations is a slightly better source of funds than advertising, but it shares many of the same flaws. With donations, viewers can determine the amount they pay by how much they can or are willing to pay, thus enabling the publication to be affordable to those who might not be able to pay the subscription fee. Unfortunately, by this system, "free riders" can pay nothing, or the minimum amount for the subscription, thus depriving the publication access to revenue. Large donors have a similar degree of influence as large advertisers, and can jeopardize the publication's financial health if they withdraw their donations. Donations are a good way for viewers to voluntarily support a publication's continued existence, but are too unreliable to be a sole source of revenue.

While the best way to fund an independent publication would depend on its content, audience and market, independent publications should mainly rely on subscription fees, and supplement it with small advertisers who would not likely appear in their reporting. While donations might be ideal for online independent news sites, which do not often require visitors to pay, they are otherwise not as steady a source of revneue as subscription payments and, like advertising, vulnerable to conflicts of interest. No matter what a publication's mission is or what its principles are, it must continue to stay true to those principles, and setting up their revenue so that no single well-conceived journalistic decision is unaffordable is necessary to provide its consumers the best possible journalism.