Shaking Up Journalism and Philanthropy

Thursday, July 30, at 3:30 p.m. U.S. Eastern time

Alberto Ibargüen is president of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in Miami. He is the former publisher of The Miami Herald and of El Nuevo Herald.

A transcript of the chat follows.

    Hi everyone, welcome to today's live discussion with Alberto Ibargüen, chief executive of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. I'm really excited to have Alberto with us to answer some questions about a topic close to my heart: journalism.

While there's a lot of big problems facing the field, Alberto and his foundation are supporting a lot of innovative work, like Spot Us and ProPublica, that are forging a new frontier for reporters.

    In addition to cutting-edge journalism, I also hope we can discuss with Alberto the future of philanthropy and Knight's other efforts to support arts, culture, and community development.

For all those unfamiliar with Knight, here's my recent profile of the foundation.

    Before we begin, a couple reminders: First, you are invited at any time during the discussion to ask questions or post comments on what you are reading. To do that, simply click on the "ask a question" link on this page and type your question or comment. And as always, we will be offering a full transcript of this event after it is complete at http://philanthropy.com/live.

    I feel privileged to be here and look forward to our conversation. Thanks for participating.

The print and broadcast information systems that helped define American communities have changed dramatically. Internet and digital media have opened endless opportunities for sharing and shaping information.

But the end result may be an audience that is better informed about national and international issues at the price of an insufficiently informed local electorate. We're already in an era where it is more likely that a high school student can more easily access information about swine flu or the crisis in Darfur than corruption in city government, jobs in his or her home town or decisions about the education he or she is receiving in a public school.

In a democracy, information is a core community need. It is essential as roads or education and health care are essential to a functioning community. And it is a resource we have taken granted in the U.S.

Meeting the information needs of communities is a central focus of our work at Knight Foundation. This afternoon, I hope to learn what others think about the information needs of communities in our democracy, and about the best ways to meet them.

Question from Shawn Powers, USC Annenberg:
    Mr. Ibargüen recently said that the best thing that could happen for the future of the news industry is universal broadband, yet there is compelling data that indicates as broadband increases, people stop buying newspapers, especially local newspapers. Could you elaborate on how broadband would foster in a more sustainable news industry? Thanks!

Alberto Ibargüen:
    Thanks, Shawn. This is a hard question for a former newspaper man! It seems to me that the key issue is not how to save newspapers but how to inform communities so they may properly function. That "proper functioning" means I define as communities identifying their own challenges and opportunities, bonding around common definition and determining their own, true interests. If the world is going digital and we spend our time, money and experiments on how to stop that, we'd be making a bad mid- and long-term. To start on this path, we at KF feel access should be free and universal...just as is access to city hall or the town square. That's the start, but only that. Then comes training, content and the full, rich discussion that should be the hallmark of any democracy.

Question from David Sasaki:
    Thinking about the information needs of communities, should foundations focus on supporting 1.) more bandwidth/access, 2.) better tools, or 3.) better content? What's the biggest priority?

Alberto Ibargüen:
    Oso, I just commented to Shawn that broadband access is, in my view, the essential first step. You can't play if you can't get on the field...and even then, if you don't know how to play, you can't play effectively. As a basic proposition, any American should find unacceptable that 40% of the country does not have access because they live in rural areas, are older or are poor. Say "no" to second class citizenship for these folks. When Eisenhower decided to connect the nation with the Interstate Highway System in the 1950's, he didn't care whether you were driving a Cadillac or a Ford, driving for commercial or personal purpose. He just wanted the nation connected by a network of roads. That's all I'm saying, really, except our roads today are digital.

Question from Karin McEwen, Boston University:
    How do you see community foundations being convinced of the importance of channeling resources to "the information needs" of communities?

Alberto Ibargüen:
    Karin, Community foundations were formed to meet core needs of communities. Since I believe information is a core community need in a democracy, I truly believe it's logical for them to try to meet this need.

Until recently it wasn't necessary. Newspapers,television and radio filled the need. That's less and less the case...and will be even less so in the future.

It's true that community foundations have limited disposable resources. So, we at KF have offered to match what community and place-based or place-focused foundations are willing to do. That's a start...an inducement...through our Knight Community Information Challenge.

Over a short period of two years, I've seen dozens of community foundations find this an area where they can play a leadership role in their communities. And once community foundations are convinced of the importance of information to a democracy and of their possible role in it, I expect they will be encouraing donor advised funds to play in this area. Now, *that* could be huge!

    I'm glad the question was raised about community foundations meeting local information needs. In my story I was unable to get into how Knight is helping them do this and a recent study showed that the foundation seems to have had some success in this.

As Alberto put it to me: Access to information is "as real a need as roads, as infrastructure, as education, as health-delivery systems. You can not run a democracy without information. Period."

    That study, by the way, is available here.

Question from Decker Ngongang, GenerationEngage:
    How can journalism maintain quality within this new world of authenticity and openness provided by easier access to technology?

Alberto Ibargüen:
    Decker, Great question. The first step is to believe in the technology and what it allows us to do. At Generation Engage, you use technology to involve people in finding solutions. Why not in journalism?

Look at Wikipedia or Mozilla. Look at KF-funded projects like www.spot.us, where "the audience" decides on what stories are done. Or look at work of WWWeb inventor, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who is (with the support of KF and others) who is writing code to allow each reader of a story to become his/her own fact checker. The lack of authenticity on the Web is, according to Tim, the greatest single threat to a free and universal web. We must be vigilant.

We can also fund and support projects that develop a track record for reliable journalism on the web. There are dozens of examples like ProPublica, Voice of San Diego, Chitown Daily News, Gotham Gazetter, Village Soup, MinnPost, New Haven Independent and others. They, too, have a role here by showing that high standards of a full, fair and contextual search for truth can be done on the web.

    We're about halfway through the chat, so please keep those questions or comments coming.

Question from Thomas Ginsberg, Pew Charitable Trusts:
    Hi Alberto, What are your thoughts about tinkering with the tax or corporate structures for news organizations? (i.e. Ben Cardin's 'nonprofit newspaper' bill, or the idea of an L3C entity that combines private capital in a nonprofit structure) If they have merit, what should be done to get them enacted?

Alberto Ibargüen:
    Thanks, Tom. This is an important question because it goes to the heart of sustainability.

The First Am guarantees free speech/free press but it doesn't guarantee your operation to deliver it. I think it's important to look at the business models we use to deliver this important community need and I favor serious, open inquiry.

The first step is to look at the purpose of tax or antitrust bills that were designed to guarantee a diversity of voices by stopping monopolistic combinations. Question whether the circumstances are the same as in the '30's or '60's or even the '90s.

Looking at "hybrid" organizations (mixing purpose with profit) is what we should be about. I don't have a fully formed opinion about the details of the Cardin bill or about the various L3C ideas, but I think this is exactly what we ought to be exploring...and even allowing, at least on an experimental basis.

This fall, we'll be taking a hard look at some of these models with CUNY journalism school and the Aspen Institute. Stay tuned!

Question from Andrew, freelance writer:
    In addition to news and investigative work, journalism covering arts, books, and cultural life appears to be endangered. On the other hand, there is more creative work available to readers/viewers/listeners than ever, thanks to the Internet. Isn't there an opening for reviewers and critics as digital cultural curators--to help cultural products connect with consumers? Will a nonprofit model be necessary to sustain such efforts?

Alberto Ibargüen:
    Andrew, I think you're exactly right about the possibilities of Internet...and the difficulty of making the enterprise sustainable.

In the past, newspapers, for example, were the aggregators of information and were of value to advertisers who wanted to display their wares. I don't think department stores or auto dealers cared much whether we did cultural coverage or had foreign bureaus. But readers were willing to come to the paper for the info and advertisers went where the readers were.

So far, only a handful of organizations like the great aggregator, Google or perhaps Yahoo!, have come up w/models that work. We at Knight Foundation are looking for ideas for how to deliver news and info on digital platforms to communities. Why? Because nobody has really figured out how to structure a sustainable enterprise of the kind that does what you suggest.

Ian Wilhelm (Moderator):
    By the way, during his testimony before a Senate panel on the future of journalism, Alberto spoke both about the need for broadband and a new tax structure for newspapers. His testimony is here.

Question from Ian Wilhelm:
    This week the world lost a great innovator in Merce Cunningham, who pioneered modern dance and choreography. (Here's a New York Times obituary.)

Alberto, if you could briefly, talk about your friendship with Mr. Cunningham and how his approach to dance influenced you.

Alberto Ibargüen:
    Thanks for mentioning my friend and a personal hero, Ian.

Merce Cunningham was the great coreographer of our time. He and his partner, John Cage, were insightful, radical thinkers. They challenged established concepts for sixty years...maybe more...and they helped many others of us, far more conventional, to think more openly, more creatively and more effectively.

I met John Cage in college and was stunned by a concert of his "electronic music," realizing that if that was music, and it was, that there were no rules except for those that we chose or agreed to be placed on our brains and breadth and depth of thinking.

Merce coreographed in the mind (and on the computer, btw). He focused on movement in time and space and brought the dance together with the music, costumes and lighting only at the point of dress rehearsal. Every Cunningham Dance premiere was, therefore, something of a happening. You never quite knew what to expect. My first time was at a matinee and I had to return that night and many, many times in the years after.

It was a privilege to serve on his board and to support the work of that wonderful man, my favorite, most willful, most gentle radical.

Question from Lynn A. Harden, Odyssey Networks:
    Can or should journalism provide a platform for philanthropy around issues, the arts, and civil society much like public radio and television has?

Alberto Ibargüen:
    I'm not sure how I should answer this question, Lynn. In a sense, my answer is, "of course!" because journalism should be about whatever matters in society. But journalism doesn't have a particular debt to philanthropy. I think it's a little different for public broadcasting, which receives public dollars for the purpose of education of the society and they do have an obligation. That said, a news report about a community that doesn't include arts and civil society is a poor, incomplete report.

Question from Margaret, university :
    Now that Knight-Ridder has been acquired, will the foundation continue to honor its historical relationships with various communities where Knight-Ridder newspapers published? How will those relationships evolve?

Alberto Ibargüen:
    Thanks, Margaret.

Knight Foundation was founded by the Knight brothers and funded by them, personally, and by their mother, Clara Knight. The only Knight Newspaper contributions were made before she died in the early 1950's. So, the foundation actually did not receive any funds from the later, public company called Knight Ridder.

That said, KF was established to work for excellence in journalism and advancement of the communities they cared about and where they made their fortune. Exactly how KF does that has evolved over time and will, I'm confident, continue to evolve to fit the times. It used to be that the KR publishers acted as local advisers, later replaced by local advisory committees and, in about half the communities, by a resident KF staffer. We're looking at this now, as you may know, but haven't made final decisions on whether and how to change the structure of our communities effort.

What I'm sure of is that we will continue to look for programs that have transformational impact. I'm just as sure that those programs will have as the one, significant constant thread the element of community engagement that is essential for sustaining positive social change.

Question from Judy Golden, Operation Outreach-USA:
    Does the Knight foundation, focus any of its giving on literacy programs, similar to how the Newpapers in the Classroom programs fostered a greater interest in reading particularly newspapers?

Alberto Ibargüen:
    Yes, Judy, we do, but not to the benefit of any particular newspaper.

Perhaps the key example is our program at CUNY Stonybrook, where we support Dean Howie Schneider's project to teach media literacy. I believe they've put about 3,500 freshmen through that course. We'd love to see every student take the course as a requirement ... an essential component to being an informed citizen.

Other examples, include support for programs to teach civics and how our courts function, as in a program supported by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. We also support a program to teach immigrants in Philadelphia to be able to tell their stories on the web.

Question from Erin, small nonprofit:
    I am planning on going back to school to recieve my M.A. in English with the hopes of a career in journalism. Having started working in the field of not for profits, I have found myself more aware of the need for this sector in the lives of everyday people and hope to bring the knowldege acquired from working for a nonprofit into my writing. With that being said, do you feel that journalism is entering into more of a digital age? Do you see blogs as becoming a major source of information for the masses or is it there equal ground for online journals/magazines/newspapers in getting information out to the public?

Alberto Ibargüen:
    I'm happy about your career choice, Erin. I think the skills required to be a good journalist (open inquiry, interaction with people, fact-based decision-making, good clear exposition of information in an interesting way, relevance to your readers) are skills that will serve you well no matter what you do.

I think there's no question that journalism of the future will be on digital platforms. That's not to say there will be no print...just that the mass of journalism will be digital and, by being digital, will allow you and other journalists to tell your stories to the rest of us using a much wider variety of tools and skills than we whe merely wrote on a typewriter (as editor of the Wesleyan Argus in college, I used an Underwood Standard that weighed a ton!).

Question from Thomas Ginsberg, Pew Charitable Trusts:
    What's your opinion of the two big technological changes underway now in news publishing: 1) the so-called EZ pass pay concept like Steve Brill's effort or the AP's plan with Circulate, and 2) the e-reader model like Kindle or Plastic Logic?

Alberto Ibargüen:
    I am thrilled by all of these. I've been waiting for a Kindle since we first talked about the concept of such a table back in the early 90's with the pressmen at Newsday and am delighted to have one now.

People like Jeff Bezos at Amazon an Steve Brill are brilliant and I think the rest of us will only benefit by his experiments and those of people like Walter Isaacson at Aspen Institute. We should all follow the example of Jeff Skoll (first president of eBay) at Skoll Foundation: invest, connect and celebrate.

Alberto Ibargüen:
    I'm afraid we've run out of time. You folks have really given me a workout but I have another commitment and need to go.

I promise to answer the rest of the questions later tonight or tomorrow. In the meanwhile, please look us up at www.knightfoundation.org, or on Twitter @knightfdn or @Ibargüen.

Thanks for your attention and participation. And thanks to The Chronicle for getting us together.

Alberto

Ian Wilhelm (Moderator):
    Thanks Alberto, we appreciate you taking the time out to be here. For those who asked questions we didn't have time to get to, as Alberto mentioned, he'll answer them later and we'll put them in the transcript.

As a reminder, next Tuesday at noon we'll have a discussion about how charities can find sponsors for their events. A very tough thing to do in the current economic climate.

Thanks again, everybody!

Note: Mr. Ibargüen answered the following questions after the close of the chat.

Question from Tom Rodgers,T&C Services:
    Do you know of any 501(c)3 Organization that partners with local charities to assist them in getting grants that would not be available to them otherwise. I am a charitable organization in the state of Georgia. I am registered as a charitable organization with the Secretary of State of Georgia. I am having difficulty finding grants that do not require 501(c)3 status. Any suggestions will be appreciated. Thank you.

Alberto Ibargüen:
    No, I don't. I don't have any specific suggestions since I don't know the educational or charitable purpose of your organization.

Question from Kathryn, foundation:
    I am curious whether/how Knight is experimenting with blogs, particularly issue blogs (similar to NY Times "topics") with program staff themselves, as thought leaders and field/policy experts, doing the blogging.

Alberto Ibargüen:
    Kathryn, We've tended to support blogs indirectly. We do have some on our Pulse website and have encouraged our grantees to blog about their experience. And many of our online journalism grantees feature blogs of all sorts. As to issue blogs, our primary focus has tended to be journalism, generally, rather than advocacy of specific policies. That said, I'd be interested to know what you have in mind.

Question from joel gratcyk, fuel international (small non-profit)
    My wife and I have a fundraising site setup for our work with Fuel International (international humanitarian aid and volunteer work type trips). We are having some trouble raising funds beyond our close friends and family. Do you have any suggestions on expanding that effort? http://HelpSend.Us

Alberto Ibargüen:
    Joel, It's hard to suggest fund-raising strategies without knowing more about your field, website and projects. Often, individuals are reluctant to fund an idea. Perhaps if you used social media to tell about the specific projects you've already funded, it would make the projects "real" in the minds of potential donors. Not just testimonials but stories about real things you've done to help real people help themselves. Possibly, those who have already given could be persuaded to tell their friends, also using social media. Point is to get the word out about what you do, about how little you actually spend to do the work and how much of the money you take in is devoted to the work, not the administration of the foundation.

Question from Dan Rademacher, Bay Nature Institute
    I find Spot.us incredibly compelling, but I have struggled with the issue of total openness to try to engage donors. At my quarterly magazine, we spend months reporting and shaping the story. Along the way, there's lots of interesting opportunities for engagement but have we "given away the story" by the end?

Alberto Ibargüen:
    I was at a meeting today with editors from the Huffington Post's affiliate, non-profit investigative journalism project, funded, in part, by Atlantic Philantrhopies. This very issue came up. You've identified the downside. But giving away the story depends on how much of the story you tell. My sense is that spot.us stories are pitched in a very preliminary way. The more complex the story ... or the harder the investigation ... the more likely the story is to turn out to be different from the original idea. Anyone who has ever worked in a newsroom is familiar with that process, even for plain vanilla stories. But imagine Watergate with new media. That story was totally incremental, almost cat/mouse, with new leaks and new tips after almost every story. What if new media had been available and Woodward and Bernstein had been willing to engage their audience? How much faster could the story have developed? How would the Nixon White House have reacted to a faster developing story? Imponderables, but the point is that stories that engage the audience, as Watergate did, tend to have a life of their own...and the journalists who succeed with them are the ones with the drive and passion to stick with the story and chase down the leads, even if they weren't the only ones chasing. I'd encourage you to contact David Cohn at www.spot.us. He is one of the most articulate thinkers on this sort of subject and I'd personally be very interested to know what he thinks, based on almost two years of experience with an expanding spot.us.

Question from Joe Ketner, International Center of Photography
    My question pertains to photojournalism and documentary photography in the present. In an era where 'citizen journalists' and amateur photographers are often a source of interest, as well they should be, what in your mind is the role of the dedicated photojournalist? More specifically, do you see grant support dwindling for programs or individuals in this area? I appreciate your thoughts!

Alberto Ibargüen:
    Good question, Joe. While it's true that the omnipresent nature of the "crowd" is a huge advantage, the eye of the pro for storytelling, rather than documenting, and composition is the other side of the coin. I remember when Maggie Stebber, a National Geo shooter joined our staff at The Miami Herald as photo editor. Her eye improved everything at the paper and made our photos not merely illustrations of the word stories, but full stories in themselves. In a digital web world, where visual is, if not everything, hugely important, photography has a future. That doesn't mean that the road isn't bumpy but stick to the storytelling.

Question from Anonymous
    I work at a Community Foundation in northern Minnesota. We're working on creating a one-stop shop of information for 18-35 year olds in the region. As we've conducted research such as focus groups and surveys with this demograhpic, they are telling us they want news that is more relevant to them in their community. We're exploring ways to provide that but my question today is how do you determine what relevant is? When we ask the question, this demographic is quick to say what they don't like but have a hard time defining what they do want. The preliminary research I've done shows quite a few studies of how this generation wants their news provided but I'm coming up short on what the content should be. Are you aware of any studies that look into this or do you have any suggestions on where this type of information might exist or how we might go about finding this information out? The second part to this question is we believe if we provide the news they are looking for and do it in a quality way, this demographic would consider supporting it long term. They seem to indicate they are more willing to pay for online content if it is relevant and accurate. What's your take on this notion/are there any models that are seeing success in this concept?

Alberto Ibargüen:
    Part 2 first: When the market isn't getting what it wants, it will find a way to get it and will be willing to pay for it. As long as it is satisfied with "good enough," it probably won't pay. There's a brilliant group in Paris called Playbac. They produce daily newspapers and web publications for children of K - 12 ages. They succeed by providing the structure and supervision, but they leave the journalism decisions to editorial groups of target market-aged kids. You might contact them for advice. Francois Dufour is the editor in chief. One other thing that ocurs to me is from Knight Foundation's own research into high school teens attitudes toward the First Amendment. With more than 100,000 teens surveyed, the most important conclusions were that a disturbingly large proportion of teens in the U.S. believe there's a role for government in censoring news...and an equally large group that thinks there is no role for government in censoring music lyrics! That to me, means you start the First Amendment conversation about music, not civics, if you want to engage that audience.

Question from Beth, Bay Nature Institute
    How can a nonprofit journalism institution (like ours) address the extremely pervasive notion that content is, and should be, free? How can we present that answer to the public in an approachable way?

Alberto Ibargüen:
    I'm certainly sympathetic to the notion that very American idea that news should be free. But the structures that acquire and develop it, it just isn't. People who do journalism need to pay their bills and feed their families and that isn't paid by "free." I think, Beth, that the market will pay when you have something it wants. If it can get it free, it will. So the trick is either to build a model that draws contributions because of civic purpose, advertising drawn to the eyeballs you can gather, or make the site compelling and engaging enough that people are willing to pay fees or membership. But, honestly, those are all old ideas. One of the reasons we fund the Knight News Challenge is that we hope to find innovations that will show us new ways of sustaining the delivery of news and info to communities. We're searching right alongside you.

Question from Journalist
    Do you think independent journalism will be threatened if a newspaper is subject to 501(c)(3) educational purposes limitations?

Alberto Ibargüen:
    No, I don't. No world is perfect. A business dependent on advertising has certain pressures that could be brought to bear on journalism. The stronger the business, the less likely an individual, disgruntled advertiser can pressure an editor. Similarly, an organization dependent on government largess has other pressures. An organization whose purpose is informing the community has no less latitude to do investigative journalism than for-profit news orgs do today. And if someone challenged it, not only do I think you'd be ok under tax laws, you'd have First Amendment rights to assert, too.

Question from Anne Benedict Hovland
    How can public radio be more a part of the solution to local information needs? Radio is a dominant and almost universally available media with proven high listener retention of information and a cost structure that favors content over distribution costs.

Alberto Ibargüen:
    For many reasons, not least of which is the money to be made by scaling and uniformity, radio has moved away from local news programming. Under Vivian Schiller, NPR, thankfully, is considering a number of ways to do locally relevant news. Some NPR stations, like WLRN in Miami, partner with the local paper (The Miami Herald) and deliver a number of quality news reports each day. Schiller and her team at NPR are considering ways to both develop local news expertise and ways that those reports can be easily, almost automatically shared with other NPR affiliates. Another example is Minnesota Public Radio's "Public Insight Journalism," a network of experts available to public radio reporters on a regular basis. More ideas are welcome and I know Vivian at NPR or Bill Kling at American Public Media would love to hear yours.

Question from Michael Berryhill, Jack Valenti School of Communication, University of Houston
    What do you see as the role of journalism programs in exploring the new media? I noticed that the foundation used to give directly to such programs but is now more interested in community foundations.

Alberto Ibargüen:
    Michael, we actually do continue to support journalism education through almost two dozen endowed chairs of journalism in as many schools. We also have invested millions in the Carnegie Knight Initiative, a partnership with Carnegie Corporation to improve and make journalism education more relevant in the digital age (and sponsors News 21, an outstanding project in teaching and practicing investigative journalism). Later this year, we expect to publish some requests for proposals for two or three "test kitchens" that will combine the efforts of a journalism school, a media organization and a willingness to use new media to tell their stories.

Question from Sara Carpenter
    Is the Knight Foundation most interested in preserving community or preserving journalism? How does the Knight News Challenge fit into your overall Foundation Goals? Are you still planning to create target "incubators or test kitchens" for knight challenge ideas? When will you launch this?

Alberto Ibargüen:
    The answer is "yes!" We are intereted in advancing communities and promoting quality journalism, both. That's how the Knight brothers envisioned the foundation. The Knight News Challenge is a recognition of where the media world is going: digital, and that none of us have the answers for how to do that effectively or sustainably. Who better to fund experiments than a foundation...especially if those experiments are all required, as ours are, to publish the results of the experiments? The "test kitchen" rfp's will likely be published late this year or possibly early in 2010. Check www.knightfoundation.org.