Digital journalism: we're still waiting for the third model of news publishing

Pierre Omidyar, above, has hired Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Jeremy Scahill to First Look Media. Photograph: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Digital journalism: we're still waiting for the third model of news publishing

What do recent launches such as Vox.com and the FiveThirtyEight mean for the development of the news media?

Emily Bell

The Guardian, Sunday 13 April 2014 / http://www.theguardian.com/media/media-blog/2014/apr/13/digital-journalism-news-publishing-vox-fivethirtyeight?CMP=twt_gu

It was only three years ago that Rupert Murdoch hired the Guggenheim Museum to launch the news app that was "for everybody": the Daily. Unfortunately for Murdoch, the Daily disobeyed every single rule of digital publishing and was, in fact, for nobody. When Arianna Huffington launched the Huffington Post in 2005 she was lucky to be greeted with a tidal wave of derision; it made the growth of the business that bit easier, unimpeded by expectation or sensible analysis.

"What works" on the web is not a mystery to publishers any more. The secrets of scaling are no longer confined to a sophomore's sock drawer in a Harvard dorm. This new age of digital enlightenment means that when organisations are born they come with built-in expectation inflation. No recent journalism launches have attracted the same interest as last week's Vox.com debut and the FiveThirtyEight's that preceded it.

The two leading characters, Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight and Ezra Klein at Vox, are inevitable rivals. Both entrepreneurial political bloggers, they found themselves hired by mainstream outlets before the 2012 election campaign. FiveThirtyEight went to the New York Times and Klein to the Washington Post. When Silver landed a new deal to be supported by ESPN and CBS last year, Klein went to his Post bosses to suggest it funded a similar internal startup. They said no, so Klein, Melissa Bell et al left the Post to set up shop with digital media company the Verge.

What's worth reflecting on is what these launches mean for the industry's development. Astute commentator Felix Salmon asked the catchy question "Is there a wonk bubble?" and immediately answered no. One casualty of the Vox team's departure has been the Post, which Klein's Wonkblog made vital reading for US policymakers. Editor Marty Baron's logic for letting Klein go has been criticised but makes sense from his point of view.

"Not all of these ventures will succeed – saying you're the 'next big thing' and hiring a bunch of people is the easy part. Nor, by the way, are legacy media organisations ordained to fail," said Baron in a recent speech. Baron should have kept Klein, say some, because without him he will lose Washington. The Post has in one way or another been losing Washington for some time. But Baron also knows there will be another Klein seeking a home at a Post that is funded by new owner Jeff Bezos, and now has capital and time to get it right.

I spent last weekend in a group discussing the future of journalism with eBay founder Pierre Omidyar in California. Omidyar's vision is to build a news organisation under the First Look banner that supports a new type of journalist: one who reports stories while walking the thin line between journalism and activism. His first hirings of Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Jeremy Scahill point to his commitment to his vision. There is clearly both time and money to be spent in figuring out how First Look fits in this new, crowded sphere.

Long-term commitment and availability of capital are changing how we think about digital journalism. Baron's conviction that the world won't end with Klein's departure is as likely to be right as the idea that Vox will be successful. We are still waiting, though, for a third model of news publishing to emerge. A news organisation that holds institutional strengths, beliefs and resources at its core but allows the rise of the independently oriented journalist some freedom to succeed or fail is still at the drawing board stage.

Maybe part of the answer will be Medium, Twitter founder Ev Williams's company, which is devising ways for writers to publish without having to edit, or be paid. A model that echoes the studio system is much more likely to succeed at scale than a publishing monolith. Being a platform for many rather than a gilded cage for a few is how tech companies have grown while content companies have floundered. And yet freedom from constraint is incompatible with the hardest, most valuable journalism.

What was striking about the discussions of First Look's formation was the depth of thought going into what, at core, a news organisation could be. The answers are beginning to take shape but are not yet fully formed. What is clear, however, is that the news operation "for everyone" that supports the revenue expectations of a large publishing business is no longer realistic. If it ever was.