MinnPost

As public interest and readership of news continues to spiral downward as has been the fashion for the past decade, the journalistic industry continues to suffer. Nearly every major news outlet including radio, television, and print has been absorbed by a number of giant corporations in order to remain financially stable. Over time this has led to the degradation of hard-hitting investigative journalism as the market has become saturated with easy to reproduce, shallow stories. Despite the financial struggles that have led news organizations toward writing stories that sell rather than stories that engage, there are a number of companies that are using alternative methods to finance their mission to produce engaging, investigative journalism. One such example is Minnpost, which operates out of Minneapolis, Minnesota. 

Minnpost is a non-profit news organization whose mission is to “provide high-quality journalism for news-intense people who care about Minnesota” (MinnPost). The stories are provided by professional and established journalists who work with and produce both video and written stories for the website. MinnPost is explicit in declaring that they “do not endorse candidates for office or publish unsigned editorials representing an institutional position” (MinnPost). This declaration is a clear shot at the current major news industries that produce content to earn profit first and foremost. MinnPost works for the citizens who are disinterested with the current trend of droll that companies are producing and has thus far, developed a strong community. MinnPost encourages their community to be active through publishing commentary pieces from the community, as well as “encouraging broad-ranging, civil discussion from many points of view” (MinnPost). It is perhaps this decision to focus on news of a specific region that has led to MinnPost’s success.

Joel Kramer is the founder, chief executive, and editor at MinnPost and has developed a hybrid method of financing to support his company. Community members have the option of becoming a donor; either a one-time deal, or becoming a sustaining member which equates to a monthly donation. Advertisements and sponsorship, combined with events and foundation support are how Mr. Kramer is attempting to create a sustainable source of “high-quality journalism that sustains democracy and quality of life” (MinnPost). The initial funding of $850,000 came to MinnPost from four families including that of Joel Kramer. Combined with aid from major foundations including the Minneapolis Foundation, MinnPost was able to get its feet off the ground. As of December 2013, MinnPost had more than 4,200 member-donors whose donations ranged from $10 up to $20,000 a year. A third of the donors are sustaining members while the rest are one-time givers.

The results of this hybrid style of financing are clear as MinnPost ended both 2010 and 2011 “in the black with over $21,000 in surplus” (Niemanlab). After three years of producing content, MinnPost received upwards of $300,000 from advertisement sales. As the years progress there shows promising signs of growth in both individual and corporate support which together make up roughly 50% of their revenue. Mr. Kramer believes foundation support will eventually dry up as most money tends to go toward larger, global sites rather than smaller regional ones (NYTimes). Roughly 55,000 people visit MinnPost at least twice a month as of 2012 and of those, 6% are contributing members. In order to survive with diminishing support from foundations, Joel Kramer believes this number must rise to 10% (Niemanlab). Due to the websites focus on regional news, the visits by Minnesotans are viewed more highly than foreign traffic.  

It could be said that the reason for MinnPost’s short term success may become their self imposed boundary in the future. As a news outlet that is strictly focused on the region of Minnesota, their audience is inherently limited. If support is primarily from individuals and foundations that have a vested interest in their specific region, growth is limited. It has also not been shown whether a company of this manner is able to sustain young journalists who are beginning their careers as a large majority of their staff are compromised of experienced, sometimes retired journalists. For now MinnPost has demonstrated that they are doing something right, and perhaps these efforts will raise awareness regarding the lack of high-quality journalism that plagues most grand scale news outlets. 

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