The Journalism Science Alliance pairs journalists with scientists and backs their work with grants, mentoring, training, and cross-border collaboration to support public interest investigations. In its first cycle, it supported 24 teams from 15 countries, awarding nearly 1 million euros in funding.
The idea for the Journalism Science Alliance (JSA) emerged during early conversations between the European Journalism Centre (EJC) and NOVA University in Lisbon. As Vera Penêda, Director of Programmes & Impact at the EJC, recalls, “we realised that it was a good moment in time to create a joint programme, at a time when journalism and science are both under pressure from rising authoritarianism and mis- and disinformation.” This shared urgency laid the groundwork for a pan-European initiative designed to bridge two fields that rarely collaborate in a structured way.
JSA is built around a simple premise: meaningful investigative journalism can be strengthened when it draws on scientific methods, and research can reach deeper into public life when communicated through strong, evidence-based reporting. The programme supports this idea through grant funding, training, mentoring, and networking opportunities that bring journalists and researchers together. With these resources, participating teams are expected to uncover stories of public interest, experiment with new approaches, and produce investigations capable of engaging audiences across Europe.
The concept is not entirely new. Over the past few decades, several initiatives have shown what can happen when academics and media professionals combine their skills. A collaborative study of the 1967 Detroit riots, carried out by the Detroit Free Press and Michigan’s Institute for Social Research, became an early demonstration of how joint inquiry can shape public understanding. “Reading the Riots,” a landmark project following the 2011 unrest in the UK, revealed how much impact such partnerships can have when journalists and scholars examine social crises together. More recently, the Center for Media, Data and Society at the Central European University ran the Black Waters project with Atlatszo and BIRN, assembling an interdisciplinary team to investigate environmental corruption along the Danube in Hungary and Romania.
What sets JSA apart is its scale and ambition. Co-funded by the European Union’s Creative Europe programme, it will run across Europe for two years, distributing €2 million in grants to support science-based investigative journalism projects, and will provide additional assistance in the form of mentoring and training. As Penêda explains, it will help participants strengthen skills such as visibility and dissemination: “Journalists learn how to apply elements of the scientific method, such as hypothesis-driven inquiry and data scrutiny. Scientists, in turn, learn how to share their work in ways that resonate with wider audiences.”
The scope of the calls has been intentionally kept broad to encourage a wide range of ideas and partnerships. The aim is to empower journalists and researchers to explore stories that matter to their communities and to the wider public sphere.
To support this ambition, the programme awards three types of grants: €10,000, €20,000, and €50,000. Eligibility criteria mirror the programme’s commitment to collaboration and cross-border exchange. Participating organisations must be based in countries that take part in the full cross-sectoral strand of the Creative Europe programme. This includes all 27 EU member states as well as Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, and Ukraine. Partners from outside these countries can also participate, provided the core team includes one eligible media outlet and one eligible research institution.
The first call, closed this summer, revealed how strongly the sector has been waiting for such a structure. JSA received 162 proposals, more than double the total number of grants it will award across its two-year run. Applicants came from 54 countries, and most teams applied for the largest Tier 3 grants of €50,000. For Penêda, this level of interest sends a clear signal: “This shows that there is enormous demand for a space where journalists and scientists can work together.”
From this pool, the independent jury selected 24 teams from 15 countries, awarding €1 million in total. The successful applicants come from a wide geographic spread and will now have eight months to complete their investigations. While many of the chosen projects focus on environmental questions, topics also range across health, justice, inequality, disinformation, and more. Penêda notes that some of the partnerships themselves are pioneering, bringing together experts who would rarely collaborate otherwise, “for example with psychologists.”
One of the recurring questions during this process was how to balance the very different working cultures and interests of science and journalism. Penêda explains that the JSA “is not about translating research into journalism, it’s about co-creating the investigation from the start, with both disciplines shaping the story.” Teams receive tailored mentoring for both sectors, and evaluators prioritised projects promising equal impact and mutual benefit for both.
Balance does not come without challenges. Penêda identifies time and alignment as the first hurdle: “They operate on a different schedule and vocabulary.” The second was ensuring that applicants clearly understood the scope, as “it is not a science journalism programme. We support any topic as long as scientific experience improves the story.” A third difficulty lies in funding: as a co-funded EU programme, the remaining financing is hard to secure. “While some foundations have stepped back from investigative journalism, others simply don’t have the schemes in place to co-fund ongoing initiatives,” Penêda notes, adding that, “we need a funding ecosystem that supports shared ownership.”
Looking ahead, Penêda is clear about the ambition: “We’d love to renew it.” The next call is set for early 2026, and the long-term vision is expansive: “it could be a template for a collaborative truth-telling model that could grow into a global alliance”, provided the right partners come on board. “It’s not just a grant scheme. It’s a way of testing how journalism and science can work together, as two truth-based fields, by building a shared structure of support.”
Jonathan Heawood, Executive Director of the Public Interest News Foundation, explains how the organisation is tackling the current crisis in public interest journalism and its focus on regenerating local news in the UK. He outlines their three pillars, shares insights into how they support news media, and reflects on the balance between vision and reality in supporting journalism.
Why was it important to establish the Public Interest News Foundation? What is your mission?
It was important to establish the foundation back in 2019-2020, for the simple reason that there was a crisis in public interest journalism. In the UK, there had been a government-backed review of public interest journalism, which simply said there is a huge market failure, applied both at national and local levels, and in relation to investigative journalism. We established the foundation to address that whole crisis in all its forms.
But the mission has evolved over the five years. Now we are much more tightly focused on the crisis in local news, because we feel like that’s where the crisis is sharpest, and also there are the most exciting opportunities to build something new. Our mission is now to regenerate local news in the UK and we have set ourselves a deadline: we want to do that by 2035.
How do you define “public interest news”? Who is eligible for your support?
We actually have a definition in our constitution. It really boils down to ethical, accurate, impartial news that informs and empowers people on matters that are relevant to us as citizens or as members of our community. That is the broad definition.
The one part of this which is sometimes controversial is where we stay impartial. Certainly in the UK there is a tradition of quite vigorous partisan journalism, some of which I think is undeniably in the public interest. But for our purposes as a charity, we had to narrow the definition slightly so we can only legally support outlets which are impartial.
And now, do you focus only on local media?
In practice. That’s a shift and we have been around for five years doing a range of activities, and we have a little bit of carryover, so some of our activities still apply to non-local media, but the vast majority is now local in practice.
In what forms do you support journalism?
The simplest element is the financial, but actually it is a quite small part of what we do. We are technically an intermediary foundation, so we do not have an endowment or a living donor providing us with unrestricted funding. We have to fundraise in order to fund. So, what we can then do with the money depends a little bit on the motivation of the people funding us.
In the UK there is only a small number of funders who have given us money. In order for us to make grants directly to news organisations, we are still working at that. It is growing, and we are aiming to build a much more significant, multimillion pound fund to invest in capacity building for local journalism.
That’s still the dream. But in practice, quite a large part of what we do is not financial. It is more about advocacy. We work to try to change the law or with big stakeholders like the BBC or Google, Facebook, et cetera, to try to create a more enabling environment for public interest, local journalism. That’s working with news providers to understand their needs and challenges and aims, but it is not directly providing them with money. It is trying to use other tools at our disposal to create an environment in which they can thrive.
Then we also have our Local News Futures programme, which is more about bringing local news providers and other people together to really imagine what the future might look like and to celebrate innovation, to explore completely different ways of doing journalism, to think about in-person journalism and live journalism: anything which seems to put the needs of the local community first and foremost. So essentially, we have three pillars of activity. One is financial support, one is advocacy, and one is what we call futures, which is mainly about convening, networking, and imagining.
When it comes to financial support, what do you fund? Can organisations come to you directly for grants, or do you have calls?
Again, it varies, because in each case it depends on our relationship with whoever is providing us with the funding. One example is that we now run an annual programme, the Tenacious Journalist Award, where there is an open call every year and we invite news providers to come to us with a vision for a really impactful piece of journalism that they otherwise can’t afford to produce. We select up to 10 people to win the financial award. That’s very tight project funding that we then give them, and we work quite closely with them to provide non-financial support, to keep them focused on how to achieve the greatest impact.
But we also have a very different type of support where we can act as a fiscal host or a fiscal sponsor to a news provider. In this case, we can provide much more unrestricted operating support. We play a much more hands-off role. We have taken an administration fee like any other fiscal host and then let the news organisation do what they want to do. So we can really operate in very different ways, depending on the relationship.
What is the most important lesson you have learned from supporting journalism?
I think it’s the constant negotiation between the ideal and the real, between what you want to do and what’s actually possible right now. That applies in so many different ways. We can go to conferences, and we are inspired by amazing visions of the future of journalism. People want to turn journalism on its head and do it in new, amazing ways. We come away thinking that this is fantastic. And then we meet some actual journalists, who are actually doing it day by day, and they do not have time or head space to think about these big, amazing new visions.
It is not how they were trained or how they have worked, if they have been in the industry for 10, 20, or 30 years or more. So you have to negotiate. You don’t want go to them and say, throw out everything you know, and explore this new, innovative, exciting model of journalism. You need to work with them where they are now and just try to create capacity for them to start to lift their heads up and look around, be inspired, and think about what’s possible.
But it is the same with the funders. As I said, we are an intermediary. We have relationships on one side with newsrooms, on the other side with funders. In the UK, very few funders have ever funded journalism. It is still a very small and very new field. We think that any funder who cares about democracy, community justice, the environment should fund journalism as part of their portfolios. We think they should be funding it with large, unrestricted capacity building grants. We absolutely believe that is the right thing for them to do, but they are not there yet. So we have to work with them slowly.
If they are curious but would rather work with a small project-based initiative, then we will do that to try to build trust and familiarity, and then over time we try to move towards something bigger and bolder. This is the constant negotiation between what we want to do, what we think is ideal, and what is actually possible in the real world.
What were the main challenges you have had to face so far?
Fundraising. For us as an intermediary foundation, simply the fact that journalism is a new, embryonic field in the UK. Intermediary foundations sit in a strange place in the ecosystem, in some ways a really wonderful place. We get the best of both worlds, but sometimes it can also be slightly awkward. Are we a funder or aren’t we? Are we in the room with other funders sharing our experience as a funder or are we in the room as a fundraiser, in which case the funders feel more cautious about being open with us?
Again, just navigating some of those tensions and trying to build the trust that we are here primarily to support funders, to support journalism, and that we think we can add value to that. But it takes time to change a culture.
How do you assess the success of your programmes? Can you share a particular success story?
We don’t have a single overarching impact framework. We would like to manage a multimillion-pound capacity building fund, and then we would have much clearer success measures. But at present, because we work in so many different ways, it does not feel right to try to create a unified theory of change.
But, as an example, there is the Tenacious Journalist Award, where we have given ten grants to ten different newsrooms to pursue ten different investigations. It has led to some really great journalism. I was talking to one of the journalists the other day who has been investigating the use of synthetic opioids in East London, where a particularly toxic type of synthetic opioid has hit the streets. It seems from her investigation that it has led to a very large number of deaths. But also, as a result of her investigation – and because she was talking to the local authority, local charities, and the local medical providers – there is an increase in the availability of the antidote, which could actually save people’s lives. The antidote was not widely available because the problem was not well known. This has changed. So I genuinely think that the journalist saved lives. It is an amazing impact.
Do you have any special advice for organisations that have not funded or supported journalism yet, but are thinking about doing so?
The advice is really simple. It is the advice you would give to funders in any context: Go and find an organisation that you really like, that you think is well led, that has a good, clear vision and is making a difference, and give them as much money as you can afford with as much freedom as you can allow, and sit back and see what happens. I guarantee that it will at least be interesting.
In a research article published in Digital Journalism, Liisa Ovaska (Tampere University) investigates Finnish news users’ understandings of the role of audience data in journalism by employing folk theories as an analytical approach.
The rise of datafication, the process of turning human actions on digital platforms into data, has transformed journalism. Newsrooms now rely on audience analytics to understand readers’ habits, adjust headlines, and choose topics that attract more attention. This data-driven approach aims to stabilise finances through subscriptions and engagement rather than advertising. However, it also shifts journalism from serving citizens’ needs to catering to consumer interests, often mixing news with entertainment.
Journalism research has long focused on how news is produced, paying less attention to how audiences understand and evaluate journalism. However, what people expect from journalism reveals much about how they perceive its purpose. Studies show that audiences in different countries want journalists to inform, fact-check, and hold those in power to account. Some also wish for more positive and solution-oriented reporting that makes them “feel good.” Yet, audiences often think commercial pressures shape journalism too much, leading to lower-quality content.
The concept of “folk theories of journalism” helps explain these audience views. Folk theories are people’s everyday beliefs about what journalism is, what it should do, and how it operates. They are shaped by personal experiences, social discussions, and public debates about the media. People use these informal theories to decide how much they trust and engage with news. For example, some audiences believe journalists are biased or too influenced by commercial interests, while others still value their ethical role.
In today’s data-driven media environment, these folk theories extend to ideas about algorithms and data use in journalism. Since people constantly encounter datafied systems online, their understanding of how data and algorithms work, often seen as opaque and profit-driven, shapes how they interpret digital journalism. Studying these beliefs helps reveal how audiences make sense of datafied journalism and how this affects their trust and engagement with the news.
News plays an important role in the daily lives of all participants in the focus groups, helping them stay informed and take part in conversations or political decisions. However, when discussing audience data, participants did not see journalism as a special or different kind of data collector compared to other companies. Their understanding of how news outlets use user data originated from several sources: personal experience with data use online, conversations with others, public debate about data collection, media messages such as cookie notices, and their participation in this study. Through these research activities, they reflected more deeply on these issues, shaping what can be called “sensitised” folk theories: views formed and clarified through guided discussion.
Across all groups, participants agreed that news organisations collect and use user data mainly for commercial reasons. They saw little journalistic or societal purpose behind these practices. Data use was understood as a way to attract advertisers, generate profit, and increase traffic on news sites. Some even described readers as “products” sold to advertisers, accepting this as part of getting free online news.
Participants also linked data practices to a decline in content quality. They felt that algorithms and analytics encourage more click-driven, superficial, and entertainment-based reporting. Headline testing and personalised news were seen as tools to boost clicks rather than inform readers. While some accepted background data use for advertising, many worried that commercial pressures were shaping journalism too strongly, weakening its role in serving the public interest.
The limited knowledge of participants of how news organisations use data suggests these practices are not clearly explained to the public. While participants remained active news readers, their critical attitudes raise questions about whether such scepticism could eventually weaken trust or engagement. The findings highlight the need for greater transparency around data use in journalism.
Ovaska, L. (2025). ‘It’s All About Money’ – News Users’ Folk Theory of Audience Data Utilisation in Journalism. Digital Journalism, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2025.2567342
Artificial intelligence offers powerful tools while also putting new pressures on already fragile business models in journalism. While newsrooms can turn to AI to boost efficiency and reach audiences in new ways, they also have to face a significant decrease in traffic – and complex questions about who should pay for the journalism that fuels AI systems.
AI tools are reshaping journalism in many ways, and their impact on business models is becoming increasingly visible. Experts usually articulate both optimism and uncertainty surrounding these changes.
For example, Niamh Burns, Senior Research Analyst in Tech and Media at Enders Analysis, describes the current situation as “a mixed bag.” Veronika Munk, Director of Innovation and New Markets at Denník N, notes that every newsroom she knows already uses AI in some form. There is even a sense of fear of missing out, she says, as newsrooms rush to try new tools, but “only a few look at success metrics,” and follow whether these tools deliver the results they expect.
The Benefits of AI in Newsrooms
Despite this lack of clarity, certain benefits of AI are evident. AI tools can help news outlets respond more quickly to their audiences, operate more efficiently, and personalise their products. They also give news organisations new ways to tell stories, reach audiences through different formats, and create products that have the potential to bring in more revenue. One clear example is the use of AI tools for tagging, which Munk describes as particularly helpful for search engine optimisation and direct email campaigns, both of which are essential for maintaining and growing readership. Other examples include automated social media posting, translation, and transcription tools, both from audio to text and vice versa.
Burns highlights that AI tools can become especially valuable for data journalists. These tools make it possible to analyse large datasets far more quickly and with fewer resources, which means even small newsrooms can attempt investigations that would previously have been out of reach. She also points out that “AI can also help with the multiplatform distribution model,” making it easier to prepare audio, video, or social media versions of a single story. In many cases, these new formats lead to higher user engagement and, with that, a greater chance of converting casual readers into subscribers.
Some organisations are already using AI to write headlines that perform better in search engines or to translate stories into new languages. This allows them to reach audiences they have never served before. Burns, however, warns against taking personalisation too far. While AI can support more sophisticated recommendation systems, journalism has always been shaped by editorial judgement, and she argues that this cannot be fully delegated to algorithms. Editors must still decide which stories matter most.
Munk takes a practical view of these developments. If a newsroom can save time on routine tasks, she says, then there is more capacity for journalistic work, and this ultimately strengthens the product. She has also seen AI tools directly contribute to higher revenue. “We have a lot of campaigns, and this tool, Manychat, a social media client, is really useful,” she explains. Denník N integrated the tool into Instagram, where sharing links is not possible. However, when the outlet partnered with The New York Times and bundled subscriptions, users could comment “New York Times” on an Instagram post and they immediately received an automated direct message with the subscription link. Munk explains that they have been using this tool for half a year and “the conversion rate is quite high sometimes.”
Another important contribution of AI is its ability to analyse audience behaviour. By identifying trends in topics, formats, or publishing times that perform best, AI tools can guide editors as they shape content strategies. These insights help balance public interest journalism with the need to produce stories that draw enough attention to sustain the business.
Still, as Munk notes, while some outlets may think about monetising the tools they develop, most are building similar systems for internal use, such as summarisation tools or language checkers. This means the competitive advantage often lies not in creating unique tools, but in deploying them thoughtfully.
Risks to Traffic and Visibility
At the same time, concerns about the risks AI poses to journalism have been steadily growing. Many of these concerns arise from the simple fact that the business model for news media was already fragile long before AI tools became widespread. Burns explains that publishers originally put their content online for free because they expected to earn money from advertising. That model has been faltering for a decade, but, as she says, “with AI, we see a further challenge: news organisations not getting clickthrough traffic as before.”
This is indeed the main concern for news media. While tech companies have relied heavily on news content to train large language models, now search engines and chatbots answer many queries directly. This means that even when users seek reliable information, they may not reach the website that produced it. Studies already show that the clickthrough rate for Google’s AI-generated summaries is dramatically lower than for traditional search results – Tollbit, for example, found a 91% decrease. Furthermore, Cloudflare reported that OpenAI scraped a news site hundreds of times for every single referral page view it sent.
Publishers see a pattern in this: while their content helps power AI tools, their own visibility shrinks. According to a study by the Reuters Institute, 74% of respondents are worried about a decline in referral traffic for their news organisation.
The impact is not equal across newsrooms. Munk notes that Denník N feels the decline in clickthrough traffic less because of their hard paywall model. Still, it can be a serious problem for outlets that rely heavily on advertising, she adds.
This has serious consequences. As audience behaviour changes, more people turn to AI-powered search engines and chatbots. For many publishers, disintermediation, the loss of direct connection with audiences, is becoming the greatest fear. Younger audiences, who already have weaker ties to traditional news brands, are drifting even further away.
Therefore, Burns argues that newsrooms “need to build direct engagement with their audience,” also because nobody knows how these tools will evolve. They change constantly as tech companies adjust their products to improve user experience. The figures and patterns we see today may shift again in as little as a few months.
Legal Battles and Licensing
Against this backdrop, publishers are trying to rethink how they can adapt. Some believe that they may eventually need to distinguish between human readers and AI agents. As The Atlantic’s CEO, Nicholas Thompson, argued at a conference, they need to identify who is visiting the site so that the organisation can decide how to monetise that interaction. He imagines showing different products or even blocking access in some cases.
You could block AI crawlers, Burns says, but then you face the “problem of losing visibility, because users will still go to these tools to search for information.” Therefore, blocking may protect content, but it also deepens the risk of disappearing from public view.
There is also a broader ethical and economic issue. AI companies rely heavily on the quality of journalistic work, which depends on careful fact-checking, verification and editorial judgement. A white paper published last year by News Media Alliance confirmed that journalistic content is among the most frequently used sources for AI systems. Yet much of this use happens without permission or payment. Burns asks whether it is possible to create an incentive structure where AI companies pay for content. Her answer is cautious: “It’s very patchy at the moment.”
Some publishers have responded with legal action. The New York Times has sued OpenAI for copyright violations, while Dow Jones and the New York Post have taken action against Perplexity.
Others have chosen partnership. A number of news organisations have already agreed to licensing deals. Burns sees “some development in the content of such deals, they are more sophisticated.” She believes that the companies should pay the newsrooms not only for historical, but also for ongoing access.
Survey data from the Reuters Institute shows that almost four in ten publishers expect licensing income from AI companies to become significant. Most, however, prefer collective deals that support the entire sector, rather than each newsroom negotiating its own terms.
Munk agrees that AI companies need journalistic content, and she sees licensing as essential for the future. “It doesn’t work otherwise. If you use something, you need to pay for it,” she argues. Burns also believes that licensing is the right path but warns that not every market will benefit equally. Large English-language publishers have more leverage, while smaller organisations will struggle. She argues that this imbalance shows why “regulatory intervention is needed here, not just ad hoc deals.”
At the same time, the growing value of human editorial oversight may become a strength for publishers who emphasise accuracy, verification, and accountability. Munk notes that journalists are responsible for the content they produce, and this responsibility gives this type of content greater value. Outlets that maintain strong editorial standards, she says, will stand out in the information environment.
Looking ahead, many argue that publishers, journalists, and tech companies should work together to understand how different forms of journalism contribute to the AI value chain. This understanding will be essential for building sustainable business models in the next era of journalism.
Ebru Akgün, Programme Manager, Informed Society at Adessium Foundation explains why supporting journalism is central to the foundation’s mission, shares insights into their focus, and highlights both the opportunities and challenges of sustaining a healthy information ecosystem in Europe.
Why is it important for the Adessium Foundation to support journalism? How does it fit into your broader strategy?
Adessium is a Dutch family foundation that works on various topics with the aim to foster positive societal change. We operate three programmes, one of which is dedicated to a well-functioning information ecosystem in the digital age.
We have been funding journalism for over 15 years, with a consistent focus on strengthening networks that produce high quality cross-border investigative journalism. Over time, we have developed our approach to ensure we meet the needs of the changing information ecosystem. We believe that quality information is key to informed decision making, whether that’s by politicians, policy makers, business leaders, or the general public.
In the early years, we mostly supported organisations that focused on accountability work. Over time, we have expanded the types of organisations we support to make sure that information that’s relevant for broader audiences is also produced. We don’t dictate what needs to be done but, provide general support to journalism organisations and aim to help strengthen them. In addition, we support press freedom and media defence work, and have taken a key interest in the impact of digitisation and technology on the information ecosystem.
In what forms do you support journalism? Do you work directly with news organisations or through intermediaries?
Our Informed Society programme tries to cover different parts of the information ecosystem, but if we just zoom into those who produce journalistic content, we support nonprofits that engage in cross-border collaborative investigative journalism. We support those who directly coordinate the work and who often publish through their partners. Typical examples are Lighthouse Reports, Investigate Europe, and Correctiv Europe.
We also support intermediaries because we believe it is key that complementary funds exist for those whom we do not fund directly, but who are the partners of our grantees. The network of our network, so to say. We have funded Journalismfund.eu for many years and currently co-fund IJ4EU. Additionally, we are among the founding partners of Civitates, where we co-created the sub-fund that focuses on fostering public interest journalism at a national level within the EU.
What are your focus areas?
Geographically, we focus on the EU. We don’t restrict our funding to any specific themes, primarily because we believe that our partners should be those who identify which topics are most relevant to society and need to be investigated. It is to respect their editorial integrity, but also because we want to provide partners with space and flexibility to develop expertise or to expand their topical areas over time.
In addition to financial support, do you provide any other assistance?
Our main approach is to provide multi-annual core funding. In addition, we fund complementary activities such as strengthening infrastructure (e.g. tooling that benefits the broader field, support mechanisms for access to information, etc.).
Where it makes sense, we provide additional earmarked funding to our partners for specific organisational development priorities. This usually entails bringing in external expertise and support. We identify the challenges and needs together with grantees but make sure they remain in the driver’s seat and select and contract external support. This could be a consultant who helps with fundraising, for example, or building income generation capacity.
What is the most important lesson you have learned from supporting journalism?
More and more, our partners struggle to distribute their content and findings effectively. With the proliferation of AI-based search and retrieval, the way people consume information is once again transforming. Content producers, including journalism groups, are losing control over how to reach broader audiences or retain direct relationships. In the long run, this undermines the viability of quality information providers.
But I’m also seeing more and more organisations adapting to this reality. Various groups are putting more focus on intentionally and effectively distributing information by, for example, hiring an impact producer, or trying to at least make that a skillset carried by someone within the team.
We see some of our grantees partnering up with different kinds of stakeholders to make sure that publications can reach those affected by the investigation topic, or those who can affect social change. It makes me hopeful to see these efforts succeed in reaching relevant and broader audiences and showcase why journalism in itself continues to be really relevant.
How do you assess the success of your programs? Is there a particular success story you can share?
We assess the success of our partnerships by keeping an eye on the objectives that are set at the very beginning. We do this in three areas: the substantive work and impact of the organisation, organisational development objectives, and objectives around the way we work together.
What we really focus on in these partnerships is seeing how organisations become stronger so that their expertise can flourish. When I look at the journalism portfolio specifically, the primary success indicator is relevant quality information in the public interest being produced and making an impact.
We look for creative and effective ways of reaching different kinds of audiences. We don’t have any specific audiences that we aim to serve ourselves, it’s rather following our partners and understanding what has been done differently per investigation to make sure that it’s not the same people behind the same paywalls that are receiving all the information.
Another aspect we look at is the kind of role our grantees play within the information ecosystem: what they manage to contribute within their own network. Think of organisations that develop a new kind of methodology, or a tool that helps others investigate stories in a different way, or organisations that have discovered a new way of creating information. For example, Bellingcat really revolutionised how OSINT can be part of investigations. They have inspired not only other nonprofits, but even legacy media, to adapt their entire newsroom to include this way of collecting information and producing new content.
Another example of changing the information ecosystem is Forbidden Stories, which also influences the incentive of why a story is being investigated, making solidarity a key incentive to continue the investigation of a silenced journalist and hopefully deter future threats to journalists. We also have some grantees, such as The Examination, who are experimenting with how better collaborative models can be developed. This includes providing support to their investigative partners so that the collaboration works better for everyone.
To mention an example of success, I could share Lighthouse Reports’ work. About two years ago, they published an investigation with local journalists in the Netherlands on an algorithm which was used by the municipality in Rotterdam to flag potential fraudsters in welfare support. It turned out that this algorithm was actually targeting migrants, specifically single mothers. Because they managed to reveal this, in the end the municipality decided to stop using the algorithm. But what was also very interesting to follow in this example was that Lighthouse Reports did not only collaborate with local partners who then published behind paywalls, but also managed to distribute the information in a way that it reached the people who the investigation was about, the single mothers. I think this is a really striking example that shows how you can make sure that the information doesn’t only reach the same audience which can afford to consume news.
What were the biggest challenges that you have had to overcome or that you still struggle with?
One that I think we will continue to struggle with is the unpredictability of the funding landscape. There are a couple of funders that are very stable and consistent with their strategies and provide multi-annual support. But what’s out there is not enough to allow our partner networks to really strategise and think about how they are going to become stronger and more futureproof.
The fact that the largest global funder, the US, has cut its global development support in many areas, including journalism, just brought this to a whole new level. There are so many organisations that are now either shutting down or going through their reserves. The entire ecosystem is quite vulnerable at the moment. It made very clear that there was an over-dependency on US public funding in Central and Eastern Europe. Even for organisations who had successfully diversified their funding streams, it turned out that some of the intermediaries they were relying on were also dependent on US funding. We saw organisations that went from having five funders to having none.
One of the biggest challenges we’re about to face due to these funding cuts is that national newsrooms are going to shut down in certain countries where no independent quality information is going to be produced anymore. Or it’s going to be small and competing with unintentional or intentional undermining factors, like disinformation and misinformation. The watchdog role of these outlets will be weakened, and quality information will be reaching less people, thus not informing decision-making. This is something that we are really going to feel in the future.
Do you have any special advice for organisations that have not funded or supported journalism yet, but are thinking about doing so?
It is crucial to have a healthy information ecosystem to support your line of work, regardless of what your foundation focuses on. If you are a foundation that works on broad topics, like democracy, the environment, or social change, the production of information is going to be crucial in the success of your strategy.
Within this whole information ecosystem, I don’t think we all have to do the same thing. What is important is that we complement each other. As one of our grantee partners recently said, a healthy democracy needs media plurality, but it is also crucial to have plurality in the strategies of funders. We should not all jump on the same thing. We need funders who focus on the local level, on the national level, the regional level, and the international level. We need funders who focus on cross-border investigative journalism, but we also need funders who focus on other forms of public interest journalism. We need funders who focus on supporting the ecosystem or the infrastructure that enables information production, funders who support conferences or training, who support FOI requests of journalists. Then we need funders who support press freedom more broadly, who ensure that there are emergency mechanisms that can support journalists being attacked for the impactful work they do.
So there is a lot to support in this space, and there are different ways of starting to experiment with this. If you make your first grant in journalism, you don’t have to have a full strategy right away. You can take your time in building that up.
We, as funders, need to be in conversation about how we are going to complement each other. I’m not inherently opposed to having thematic funding either, as long as it’s not extremely short term and not overly restricted. In places like the Journalism Funders Forum and other informal settings where funders inform each other and exchange ideas, there are plenty of lessons, but there’s also plenty of inspiration to discuss these questions.
In a research article published in Journalism, Wilson Lowrey and Anna Grace Usery examine the adoption and adaptation of standards by local news collaborations and digital startups.
Local journalism is changing, with digital start-ups and news collaborations now creating new ways of working. These efforts often bring fresh standards that focus on ethics, quality, diversity, and community involvement. Such standards can be set by news outlets themselves, or by non-profits, research centres, or professional associations. They may consist of formal rules or more general principles, making them flexible and widely adopted. In a disrupted media field, standards help build trust, guide daily work, and give legitimacy to new players. Studying them reveals both their promise and their pitfalls.
Research into local journalism suggests several reasons why standards may be adopted in digital start-ups and news collaborations. Larger organisations often create more detailed standards because complexity makes it hard to predict outcomes, and flexible standards are easier to follow than strict rules. Collaborations with many members, each with their own aims, are especially likely to adopt broad guidelines that stress values such as ethics, diversity, or independence, rather than detailed instructions about operations. Younger outlets may not yet have many standards, while older ones could either have more specific rules tied to their mission or, because of complex connections with others, broader and less defined principles.
Outside groups such as civic organisations, associations, or research centres often influence these standards. Their guidelines tend to be abstract and focused on professional values rather than technical details. This means that collaborations with non-news members are less likely to adopt rules from news producers and more likely to follow general ethical or professional codes.
Business models also matter. Commercial outlets, under pressure to run efficiently, are more likely to stress operational rules. Non-profit outlets, by contrast, tend to focus on ideals like ethics and diversity and often have more standards overall, though they are less likely to demand strict compliance. Standards can also grow stronger when outlets focus on accountability journalism, since such work invites scrutiny and pushes organisations to show legitimacy through clear commitments.
To test these ideas, the study examined websites and published standards from a range of news collaborations and digital start-ups, including both non-profit and commercial outlets. These newer forms of journalism were chosen because they are most likely to look for legitimacy and support.
Most of the news sites studied had at least one set of standards, though some had more than one. These standards covered a wide range of themes, from ethics and diversity to community engagement and operational rules. Many outlets, especially non-profits, drew on outside organisations, such as professional associations or civic groups, for guidance. This shows how standards often spread beyond newsrooms and take shape in broader networks. Yet regrettably, many outlets treated standards more as symbols of legitimacy than as rules to be followed. In many cases, websites gave little sign of standards, or listed principles that were not clearly relevant to their specific mission.
When looking at the initial hypotheses, the results of the research were mixed. Larger news producers were not more likely to have extensive standards, nor did their standards focus more on abstract values, so both size-related predictions failed. The age of the outlet also showed no clear link with relevance of standards. The role of non-news partners proved weaker than expected: their presence did not increase the adoption of outside standards, nor did it push collaborations towards abstract principles.
Non-profit status mattered more. While non-profits were not necessarily more likely to frame their standards around broad principles, they were more likely to demand compliance and to have standards overall, especially when counting individual ones. Commercial outlets generally had fewer. The strongest and most consistent result was linked to accountability. Outlets that defined their mission around holding power to account had more standards, both in number and scope, and were far more likely to publish them.
This research showed that standards are easy to adopt and that they help newer organisations build legitimacy. Outlets that focused on accountability journalism were especially likely to adopt standards, perhaps because challenging the powerful invites criticism, making it important to show a public commitment to ethics and professionalism.
Outside organisations such as professional associations and networks appeared to shape the wider environment by offering sets of standards, but local outlets often adopted them loosely. Many principles were broad, not directly linked to the outlet’s mission or community. In fact, more than 40% of individual standards were judged not especially relevant to the producer’s local role, and on many sites, standards were either buried or not linked at all. This points to a degree of “decoupling,” where standards serve more as outward symbols than as tools for guiding daily practice.
The findings suggest that, while standards offer a useful framework, they risk becoming empty if not tied to the outlet’s own values and needs. Journalists and managers should think carefully about whether their standards reflect the priorities of their communities or mainly echo the agendas of outside organisations. For standards to strengthen trust, they must be meaningfully integrated into everyday reporting rather than left as vague, symbolic statements.
Lowrey, W., & Usery, A. G. (2025). The spread of news standards: Examining an emerging means for control and legitimacy in local journalism. Journalism, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849251362463
Crystal Logan, Co-Executive Director of the Reva and David Logan Foundation, explains how funding journalism connects to their broader strategy and shares insights into why Europe is a key part of their portfolio. She stresses the value of risk-taking in funding, the interdependence of different forms of support, and the Foundation’s role in helping smaller organisations grow.
Why is it important for the Logan Foundation to support journalism? How does it fit into your broader philanthropic strategy?
We believe that journalism is truly essential for the health and vitality of civic participation and debate. Consequently, we believe that it’s the surest protection of our freedom and democracy. Journalists can affect large-scale, lasting change, and that addresses the other areas that we fund: social justice and arts granting. In those areas, we grant to address the systemic issues that are plaguing our society, including inequity, indifference, suffering, and neglect. Journalism can bring light to some of those issues and hold those in power to account. All our granting is intersectional and interlinked, and journalism is essential to support the Foundation’s mission and protect those most vulnerable in our society.
As a Chicago-based foundation, why do you think it is important to support journalism in Europe?
We support journalism in three main geographical locations: in the US, Europe, which includes the UK, and Latin America. We live in an age of globalisation. Issues, whether societal, environmental, or political, don’t stop at borders.
We consider Europe to be an important and critical region in the world that really needs to have a healthy journalism ecosystem. One of the things we’ve learned from funding in Europe is that there are many innovative ideas that stem from lots of cross-learning pollination. Some of the most seminal/creative innovations in journalism practice have come from Europe, and we consider Europe to be a key part of our journalism portfolio.
In what forms do you support journalism? Who is eligible for it?
We support journalism in several different ways. We are able to support any organisation which is involved in the journalism ecosystem, those I would call journalism and those which are journalism- adjacent. That includes supporting traditional outlets, most of them being national investigative outlets such as Disclose and BIJ in London. We also support cross-border investigations, collaborations; so organisations such as Investigate Europe, who understand that the issues they report on need a regional lens. Symposia and training are core parts of our European strategy. We fund the Logan Symposium, run by the Centre for Investigative Journalism in London, and others such as the Disruption Network Lab.
It is very important for us to make sure that we give journalists across the world not only the funds and the resources to be able to do journalism, but the training and tools that they need. And time to think, which sometimes is underrated.
We also support databases like Good Jobs First, a US organisation which has a Europe focus as well, and has interesting tools such as a violation tracker. Forbidden Stories, ACOS, and GIJN are also in the portfolio. It’s really a little bit of everything that could be associated with journalism.
What do you consider the most important element of your support? Is it possible to rank them at all?
I don’t think so. To be honest, they are all interdependent. In today’s world, we have to look at all the separate elements needed to create an effective journalism ecosystem, something that’s healthy and continues to produce excellent work. Journalists can’t produce their best work if they haven’t got the training and the skills to do it. They also have to look after themselves and make sure that they understand the security concerns; and they need the data as well. So it’s all interlinked. The core mission is to produce incredible journalism that creates meaningful change.
What is the most important lesson you have learned from supporting journalism?
For us as an organisation, one of the lessons we have learned is how many brave, talented journalists are out there, and that journalism that tells the truth and engages audiences does make a difference for freedom and democracy. To be honest, without truth, we have nothing, and we are in real trouble.
The most important lesson as a funder is that it’s okay to take risks and it’s important to be fearless. It’s good to go outside your comfort zone and identify and support people that others might not.
What were the biggest challenges you have had to face so far?
Honestly, the biggest challenge in Europe is learning the landscape, in both the funding world and the nonprofit world, being able to truly understand cultural differences, nuances, and languages, and keeping up to date, because things are changing so quickly.
We have a number of languages on the team, but it’s different to read in a language that you are not fully fluent in. That’s definitely been one of the biggest challenges and limitations that we’ve had. We also rely on organisations that now publish in English, and that helps us overcome some of those challenges and ask colleagues and others who can provide guidance as well.
How do you assess the success of your programmes? Is there a particular success story?
We have so many success stories, I don’t think it would be particularly fair to single out one organisation. This is our 60th year at the Foundation, so we’ve been doing this for a very long time. How do we assess success? I would say initially our process begins with lots of due diligence. We test things from a lot of different angles. We speak to a lot of people. We read, we listen. We like to tell people that we lurk in the shadows, and we have one saying: “you know it when you see it”.
I think that’s really the way that we assess the success of our programmes. But you know, it really differs from organisation to organisation. For others, success might mean a great investigation. But for us it’s a number of factors – one of the things we look for is whether an organisation is able to take the next step. We fund a lot of smaller organisations, and our focus is to be a catalyst. We don’t want to be a “sustainer” organisation, we are not big enough as a foundation to do that. So one of the things we want to do is to give smaller organisations a push and give them the support that they need to take it to the next level. If they are able to do that, that is a great success for us. If they are able to diversify their revenue streams and grow in the way they need to grow, then for us that’s true success.
There may be a reference to metrics, but that’s not something that we focus on. Each organisation is different, and we always ask them to define their own success. “If we give them X grant”, what would they consider to be a success with that funding? In doing that, it’s a conversation and partnership from the beginning.
We understand that success is relative, especially with everything that is happening in the world. We’ve had Covid and many things that have never happened before. Now the withdrawal of USAID funding and the rise of authoritarian regimes… So I think success today also means finding and cultivating organisations that are flexible and able to evolve. That is something that we definitely look for. We want grantees to be both proactive and reactive.
Do you have any special advice for organisations that have not funded or supported journalism yet, but are thinking about doing so?
Think laterally. Journalism is an excellent means to help bring more public attention to some of the causes that you care deeply about. If you’re concerned or apprehensive as a prospective new funder, it’s important to reach out to others who are already funding journalism. There’s nothing that traditional journalism funders like more than speaking to potential new funders. Check out funding mechanisms and organisations in this space who provide a lot of support in Europe, including the Journalism Funders Forum, among others.
What I would always recommend to people: go to a journalism festival, a symposium, a conference, and get a better feeling of what it is about, what the impact is. Listen to journalists, what their challenges are, what they need to be better at, and what they are hoping to achieve. Go out and investigate what speaks to you and start by funding something that you feel comfortable with.
The European Commission’s new €2 trillion budget proposal could reshape EU support for journalism. Hopes are high for a substantial increase in journalism funding, but questions remain over how much of it will truly reach news organisations. Experts also agree that EU funding could have a greater impact if it was more targeted, better structured, and aligned with a long-term vision for Europe’s media landscape.
In the summer, the European Commission presented its proposal for the next seven-year budget (Multiannual Financial Framework, MFF), amounting to €2 trillion for the period from 2028 to 2034. According to the proposal, the Creative Europe and Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) programmes are being merged into one media-culture joint support vehicle, AgoraEU, which will support media freedom, civil rights, democracy, and diversity with a total of EUR 8.6 billion.
AgoraEU will consist of three strands: Culture, CERV+, and Media+. In the previous MFF, Creative Europe amounted to €2.44 billion and CERV about €1.55 billion. Research by the Media and Journalism Research Center (MJRC) found that from 2018 to 2024, the EU funded journalism projects with a total of €295.1 million (about €42 million each year). Therefore, AgoraEU’s planned €8.6 billion represents a significant increase. The Media+ strand, designed to strengthen the competitiveness and resilience of the media and audiovisual industries, including production, market access, digital transition, media pluralism, and viability, will account for roughly €3.2 billion of that total – around €457 million per year.
Media+ proposes funding in investigative journalism, digital innovation, and media literacy, to increase access to trustworthy information and tackle disinformation. According to the Commission, it will build on the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) and will complement the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) by providing financial support and strengthening editorial independence.
However, it is important to note that the Media+ strand splits between Audiovisual and News objectives, with the first one including films and even video games, and it is not yet known how the €3.2 billion would divide between them, warns Péter Erdélyi, Founding Director of the Center for Sustainable Media. He thinks that this first offer looks very good, and it indeed seems likely that funding will increase compared to the previous period.
MJRC Director Marius Dragomir also welcomes the increase because “journalism is going through unprecedented changes.” Ivana Bjelic Vucinic, Director of the Global Forum for Media Development’s (GFMD) International Media Policy and Advisory Centre (IMPACT), hopes that this reflects a stronger EU commitment to media freedom, civil rights, and democracy.
Determining the Final Numbers for News Media
At the same time, all three experts point out that it is difficult to know how much of the money will actually reach journalism projects, as EU funding mechanisms are complex and often involve many layers of distribution. Bjelic Vucinic notes that the proposal outlines objectives for the News strand, but details of allocations, programme design, and management mechanisms are still unclear. The big question is what will happen during the negotiation period, Erdélyi says, adding that everyone will be lobbying for a bigger share.
In fact, the real battle will start among the Member States. Some governments have already indicated that they reject the budget proposal as it is, while others want to decrease overall spending or adjust priorities significantly, Erdélyi explains. Still, he does not believe that the amount of journalism funding will decrease significantly in the MFF, unless the European political landscape undergoes major changes.
Dragomir agrees: “At the moment, there is considerable support for media and journalism at the EU level. However, this could change depending on wider developments. For instance, if the threat of war in Europe increases, that would obviously have a major impact on how these funds are allocated,” he argues.
Bjelic Vucinic believes, however, that negotiations may reduce the final allocation. “This is why joint advocacy efforts will be essential to preserve funding levels that can meaningfully support independent media and journalism initiatives,” she argues, stressing that preserving and strengthening media freedom depends on strategic allocation of funds. She points to a recent GFMD position paper that recommends providing at least €150 million annually to non-profit, investigative, and small local outlets to achieve real impact. She also emphasises that funding should go beyond short-term project grants and instead ensure operational sustainability, foster innovation, and safeguard editorial independence.
Redesigning Funding for Media Realities
To make EU funding more effective for journalism, all three experts agree that the system needs to be redesigned with the realities of the media sector in mind.
Independent media should be recognised “as a public good essential for democracy,” Bjelic Vucinic argues, adding that funding should be flexible and designed to cover operational needs as well as editorial independence, rather than short-term project grants.
Dragomir says the EU should begin by improving its understanding of the media landscape. He argues that a large-scale effort to map how citizens inform (or misinform) themselves would help to identify gaps in information and reveal which organisations most need support. This, he explains, would allow funding to be better targeted to the needs of both citizens and media outlets.
Erdélyi agrees, stressing that programmes should not lump together vastly different players. He believes that small non-profits with tiny budgets should not be competing against large organisations with tens of millions in resources. Instead, funding should be structured into different schemes, tailored to outlets of different sizes, revenue levels, and capacities. Some outlets, for example small local non-profits, cannot survive under normal market conditions but still provide public service and deserve support. At the same time, he notes, larger organisations could benefit from investment in innovation and competitiveness.
Both Dragomir and Erdélyi also underline that the process of accessing EU money must be simpler, particularly for smaller news organisations that currently struggle with the administrative burden. Erdélyi adds that using intermediaries to distribute funds could help, since they are better placed to handle small grants and have a better understanding of local contexts.
Erdélyi also suggests that the EU could experiment with matching funds, where support would match the income outlets raise from subscriptions or micro-donors, helping to strengthen competitiveness and encourage audience engagement. He also sees potential in incentive schemes, such as giving teachers vouchers to spend on media subscriptions, which would reward quality outlets through market-style mechanisms.
At the same time, Bjelic Vucinic calls for innovation to be prioritised, with funding supporting sustainable business models, quality journalism, and media literacy rather than profit or political goals. She also proposes that EU funds could be used to attract private investment through public–private partnerships, multiplying the effect.
Finally, the experts agree that journalism funding should not be viewed in isolation. Bjelic Vucinic emphasises that support should be embedded in wider EU policy and legislative frameworks.
Beyond AgoraEU
When looking at EU support for journalism, it is important to consider not only the funds proposed under AgoraEU but also a range of other instruments that touch on journalism in indirect ways. Erasmus+, for instance, is a massive programme worth tens of billions in the EU budget. While journalism makes up only a small part of it, Erasmus+ can still support journalism education, including master’s and doctoral programmes, as well as training and skills development.
Programmes such as Digital Europe and Horizon can also play a role by funding tools, research, and digital infrastructure that benefit newsrooms, from AI-based reporting tools to systems for detecting deepfakes and improving cybersecurity. Erdélyi also thinks that other EU programmes, such as the Competitiveness Fund, could be opened to media companies for technological innovation.
Furthermore, Global Europe, the EU’s external funding instrument, also contains media development support, Erdélyi notes, adding that this is especially important because US funding in this field has largely disappeared, and the EU might be trying to take on a greater role in supporting independent media outside its borders.
Independent journalism is essential for democracy, resilience, and public trust, Bjelic Vucinic stresses. At the same time, as Dragomir points out, there is still no clear picture of what it actually costs to sustain a diverse and pluralistic media sector. He believes that the EU should first gather detailed data on who the main actors are, what resources they need, and how much it takes to keep strong media organisations running and able to reach citizens. Only once this knowledge is available, he argues, can the EU realistically estimate the level of financial support required, decide how long it should last, and define the impact it is meant to deliver.
Can small, local independent media thrive in an authoritarian environment? A multiple-year-long funding programme revealed that upscaling small outlets can deliver results, but only when paired with strong internal capacity, business-minded leadership, and continued donor engagement.
Supporting Independent Media Under Pressure
Since 2021, the Media and Journalism Research Center (MJRC) has supported independent local media in highly authoritarian environments through a sub-granting programme. For safety reasons, MJRC does not disclose the names and locations of the media outlets in the programme.
Funded by a philanthropic partner, the programme provided core funding to help outlets achieve financial and organisational sustainability, grow audiences, and strengthen resilience. It also fostered collaboration among grantees and evaluated their progress through regular monitoring and comparative analysis, measuring impact across audience reach, revenue, and staffing.
The programme consisted of two phases. In the first phase, MJRC awarded grants to seven local organisations. According to the programme evaluation, it filled a critical gap in local media, offering vital funding, mentoring, and capacity-building. Grantees appreciated the tailored support and local-language administration. Challenges included limited capacities, inexperience running donation campaigns, economic instability in the country, and political pressure.
What Upscaling Looks Like
In the second phase, three of the grantees were selected and received a much larger grant. This phase focused on two core goals: scaling up the infrastructure and impact of the selected outlets and exploring how innovative strategies work in captured media environments. The aim was to help grantees take meaningful steps toward long-term sustainability.
The selection process emphasised operational growth and capacity-building rather than content production, with the jury assessing how applicants could realistically expand their infrastructure, outreach, and impact, based on past performance and readiness for organisational change.
Two grantees received grants almost three times larger than their previous annual budgets, but even the largest outlet experienced a 40% budget increase. In addition to funding, the programme provided ongoing training sessions, peer learning, and mentoring in capacity-building. The organisational development training supported internal improvements, while a needs-based approach ensured tailored support aligned with each outlet’s goals and capacities. The programme aimed to build more sustainable, resilient, and independent media organisations capable of withstanding pressure in challenging environments.
Without this grant, the two smaller grantees would likely have continued to struggle with day-to-day operations, facing little opportunity for meaningful development and little hope of achieving visible impact. In a heavily captured media environment where prospects for press freedom and media sustainability remain bleak, the survival of independent local outlets is largely dependent on donor support. The market simply does not offer the necessary conditions for a small news organisation to become sustainable, let alone to grow or innovate.
The Role of Management and Capacities in Sustainability
One of the key lessons of the project was that smaller outlets often lack the skills and internal capacity required to carry out the kind of strategic and structural transformation that sustainability demands. This became apparent as both smaller grantees faced significant delays in implementing their plans and struggled to use the funds in a timely manner due to insufficient capacities and lack of expertise.
In contrast, the largest grantee was able to deliver on its project goals within the expected timeframe. As a more established organisation with experienced management and a stable internal structure, it was well positioned to absorb the grant and make full use of it.
The size of the organisation and its internal capacity are critical factors in determining how effectively a grantee can handle a grant that dramatically expands its operating budget. While the smaller grantees also experienced a temporary increase in income, primarily through supplementary grants from USAID’s Central Europe programme, the sudden termination of that programme in early 2025 posed a serious threat to their financial stability.
However, the two smaller grantees are not in the same position. One of the most important insights from the project’s earlier phase was confirmed again: outlets led by a business-minded management are significantly better equipped to sustain and grow their operations. This difference became even more apparent after the USAID funding ended. While both smaller grantees lost key financial support, one of them is now in a much stronger position due to its more robust operational staff which has proactively secured new sources of revenue. The other organisation, which lacks a strong business-minded management, has returned to a precarious financial state with potential staff cuts on the horizon and little clarity about the future.
The Limits of Market-Based Models
Long-term sustainability for independent media depends on diversifying revenue streams. Yet in such a hostile and distorted media environment, this is exceedingly difficult. Advertising remains one of the biggest challenges. In captured environments, state advertising often is an important source of media ad revenue but is reserved exclusively for outlets that support the ruling parties. Moreover, in such environments, private businesses are reluctant to advertise in independent outlets, fearing political or economic retaliation.
This makes it all the more important for media organisations to experiment with alternative ways of engaging their audiences. Encouraging regular feedback from readers can help shape editorial strategies that better respond to audience needs. Data on content performance can also reveal which formats or topics are most effective in building loyalty and trust.
Financial sustainability could also benefit from more targeted efforts to understand the audience’s willingness and capacity to pay, whether via donations, subscriptions, or paywalls. Still, in many countries only a small portion of the population is willing to pay for news, therefore audience-based funding, while desirable, cannot yet provide a stable foundation, especially for local outlets with smaller audiences.
Independent local journalism remains indispensable for informing communities and holding power to account. However, without external financial support there is a growing risk of entire regions turning into news deserts where propaganda and misinformation go unchallenged.
Therefore continued donor support is essential. Core funding is the only realistic way to keep small local media running, as the current market offers no viable path to full financial independence. While relying on grants is not ideal, it remains the only available lifeline for independent journalism in countries with declining media freedom.
For more information, contact the Media and Journalism Research Center.
In an article published in the International Journal of Communication, Sebastian Sevignani, Hendrik Theine, and Mandy Tröger offer a new theoretical framework for analysing different forms of direct and indirect influence of Big Tech on news media by expanding the concept of media capture to media environment capture.
Powerful tech companies, especially US-based ones such as Meta and Google, are shaping journalism worldwide. They not only distribute news but also control the digital systems that decide what people see. This growing influence, which the authors call media environment capture, goes beyond ownership concentration: tech giants shape the entire information space. While researchers tend to focus on national cases or mix up different types of influence, this study suggests a broader way to understand how tech companies use both economic and technological power to shape journalism and public debate across countries and regions.
The idea of media capture originally described how governments influence media, despite laws protecting press freedom. This can happen through ownership, financial support, regulation, or corruption, usually leading to more positive coverage of the government. Over time, private companies and advertisers have also used similar tactics, buying media outlets or influencing content through advertising.
At the same time, with the rise of digital media, traditional media lost much of their advertising income to tech companies, leaving many outlets struggling financially and sometimes owned for political reasons instead of profit. Meanwhile, tech giants such as Google have become both funders of journalism and providers of essential tools which news outlets rely on, resulting in media environment capture.
To better understand the concept, the authors combine and apply interdisciplinary theories. They apply the theory of intellectual monopolisation, which focuses on the capabilities of digital conglomerates to absorb and claim knowledge, information, and data, influencing other industries including news media. They also borrow from critical state theory, offering conceptual clues as to how corporations influence media regulation. They also look at more recent theories of capitalism to understand how Big Tech harnesses the underpinnings of journalism.
Media environment capture explains how these tech giants create dependencies that make it hard for news organisations to function independently. On one hand, Big Tech provides funding to media outlets and journalism projects, sometimes to ease tensions with traditional media companies over advertising revenues. On the other, they also shape state media laws by spending millions on lobbying and supporting think tanks and research institutions, particularly in the European Union and the United States, which helps them steer debates on regulations and protect their business interests.
Furthermore, tech companies shape journalism practices through the platforms they provide, such as Facebook, through which they dominate news distribution and advertising. Through services like Google Analytics and Facebook Insights, tech companies control how media outlets understand and reach their audiences. Because so much news is consumed online, often through these platforms, journalists must adapt their content to fit algorithms and user data collected by Big Tech. This dependency forces them to adjust to the business models and distribution methods of tech giants, reducing their independence and changing journalism itself.
But news outlets also depend on Big Tech services and technologies to organise their daily work. Journalists use tools like Google Search, WhatsApp, and Teams for research and communication, while also relying on platforms like Facebook Instant Articles to share content.
The power of Big Tech comes from building large-scale hardware and software infrastructures and collecting vast amounts of user data, which they use to shape the digital public sphere. The concept of media capture, which focuses on ownership and financing, is no longer enough to explain their influence. Instead, the broader idea of media environment capture shows how their influence affects every part of news production and distribution.
As a result, media policies should be rethought by looking beyond single companies and instead considering how to reorganise the entire digital public sphere to protect independent journalism.
Sevignani, S., Theine, H., & Tröger, M. (2025). Unpacking Property: Media, Ownership, and Power in Transformation| Toward Media Environment Capture: A Theoretical Contribution on the Influence of Big Tech on News Media. International Journal of Communication, 19, 21. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21987