Rob Curley: We’re going nonprofit, and you have questions. Here’s what to expect

The emails, text messages and phone calls started almost immediately after it was announced. The Spokesman-Review was on the path to being owned and operated by a local 501(c)(3), and it was using some sort of new “hybrid” funding strategy that was different than what most other news nonprofits use.

The notes came from all over: local readers and subscribers, editors across the state and nation, publishers from seemingly everywhere, even politicians from both sides of the aisle. So many people reached out to congratulate our community on working to find new ways to keep local journalism alive. To that end, there were even calls from other communities’ leaders asking if we might be able to help their local newspapers do something similar.

There also were lots of questions.

Because this plan has been in development for years, most are fairly easy to explain. Many were answered in the initial story that was published Wednesday in The Spokesman-Review.

Others were questions we knew the answers to, but that involved fairly complicated answers. And others were flat-out head-scratchers … as in, none of us is still quite sure what was being asked.

So let’s try to answer some of the questions that were not answered in last week’s news story about The Spokesman-Review transitioning to nonprofit ownership.

Why is this happening?

The economic headwinds hitting local newspapers are bad enough that at least two papers close every week across the nation. Local news organizations – especially newspapers – are struggling, mostly tied to changes in advertising strategies and a local retail apocalypse tied to online shopping.

But the economics are much more complicated than what can be answered in a few sentences, which is why we asked Charles Apple to build a Further Review full-page infographic to help explain.

Along with notable cost savings associated with being a 501(c)(3), the transition to nonprofit also allows the newspaper to have access to other funding options simply not available to for-profit entities, including philanthropy from foundations, businesses and individuals, tax-deductible membership programs and other community contributions.

This structure allows us to more easily work with other nonprofit news organizations, including sharing resources, content and even expenses, as well as being able to partner much more closely with academic institutions to help discuss the value of media literacy and explain the essential role of local journalism within a community. And, of course, it allows us to work with student journalists at all levels.

When will this happen?

The Cowles family is donating the newspaper and a $2 million matching grant to the Comma community journalism lab, which would become the owners of The Spokesman-Review, contingent upon the community matching the $2 million financial gift within the next 12 months.

Though much more fundraising needs to happen, let’s pretend Comma already had the matching funds – which it doesn’t. But if it did, the transition would still take months to complete. New back-end office systems need to be implemented, and key hires related to being a nonprofit need to be made.

None of these things happens quickly.

If everything goes right, and relatively quickly, the best guess might be as early as October, but likely later. Until that time, The Spokesman-Review will continue to be owned and published by Cowles Publishing.

Are you changing the name?

This was essentially answered in the Wednesday news story. The name will stay the same, and it will continue to publish as it does: six days a week in print and always online, with some stories continuing to be behind a paywall, while stories reported and written by reporters whose positions are funded at least partially by outside grants will remain free to all online readers.

We looked at using the name “New Coke,” but it’s pretty hard to compete with a name that’s been in continual operation in Spokane for well over a century. This newspaper’s name will forever be The Spokesman-Review, with the opening capital T and the fancy hyphen. No comma.

What will happen to The Spokesman-Review building?

It will remain under the ownership of the Cowles family, and The S-R newsroom will continue to be located there for the foreseeable future.

What will happen to the current reporters and editors for The Spokesman-Review?

All members of the current newsroom will be asked to be a part of the “new” newsroom, which is really just going to be the same Spokesman-Review newsroom that we have. Well, kind of.

The First Amendment Club, a membership program of the new nonprofit, has already raised considerable money, but is aiming to raise even more to create $1 million worth of new journalist positions in Spokane.

Then add in even more student journalist positions, and you get a newsroom that’s not only the biggest Spokane has seen in decades but also one of the biggest in the nation for a regional newspaper.

How is this different than other recent news nonprofits that are struggling financially or already have failed?

Most local news nonprofits, and even national news nonprofits, rely mostly on philanthropic dollars to survive.

The “hybrid” funding model is the single-biggest difference point between how most news nonprofits operate and how the future Spokesman-Review will operate as a nonprofit. A significant portion of The Spokesman-Review’s current annual revenues (nearly 70%) is tied directly to subscriptions. Ad dollars are down, as they are in every newspaper across the nation, but advertising in this newspaper still generates serious amounts of revenue … significantly more than most local news nonprofits raise annually.

The way that Comma has been structured allows for both of those things to continue, along with being able to add nonprofit fundraising to the mix. Annual subscription dollars and millions in advertising are the exact things that most news nonprofits don’t have.

Because of this, the philanthropic dollars we bring in are augmentative but not central to our existence. Having multiple legs that support this and help fund local journalism is the key to this hybrid model.

How will The Spokesman-Review remain impartial if there is funding by certain businesses or organizations, and will we continue to hold our funders accountable if they do something wrong?

The best way to answer this is to explain a little bit from the past.

The Spokesman-Review’s first grant-funded position came in 2019, when our newspaper received a Report for America grant that would pay for half of that reporter’s position salary in the first year, 40% in the second year and 20% in the third year. The rest of the funding each year had to be covered by local philanthropic dollars. That health reporter position is now 100% covered by local philanthropic dollars.

We have since had a total of four Report for America reporter positions, and all of those are still a part of our newsroom and 100% paid for through local philanthropic dollars. In total, our newsroom has six grant-funded reporter positions.

That history helps set up the story behind a meeting that was held last fall to update our newsroom on the current status of our newspaper working toward becoming a nonprofit-owned news organization. This exact question came up from one of our reporters, as it should.

At that point, one of our grant-funded reporters was asked if he knew who funded his position, and he said he did not. Then the next reporter was asked, and she said she did not. None of them knew. And none of them will.

There is a hard firewall between funders and our journalism. The reporters typically don’t know who has funded their position, and the organizations or individuals who help fund positions sign an agreement outlining that they can not reach out to our newsroom in anyway.

The “typically” in that last sentence refers to things like Bank of America funding our high school interns, or multiple foundations coming together to fund our racial and social equity reporter position. In those circumstances, stories by those reporters include a sentence at the end that outlines how their position was funded.

A funder can suggest a new topic be funded – which is exactly how both our rural counties reporter position and our D.C. reporter position began – but cannot suggest story ideas or have contact with our reporters or editors.

And all of these things have been the been the case since Day One. If you’ve made it this deep into this column, you likely have seen all of the things mentioned above numerous times over the last six years in numerous stories by grant-funded reporters in our newsroom.

When we first began working toward this strategy almost seven years ago, we looked at how other nonprofit news organizations handled this, and what their policies, and even their paperwork, were like. We immediately began to appreciate just how well CalMatters in California handled these important issues, and we emulated nearly everything they did.

CalMatters is a highly respected nonprofit news organization founded in 2015 that covers state politics and issues, with a focus on state government. Following CalMatters’ example on how to create a hard firewall between funders and the journalism has worked for us.

But it’s hard to hold others accountable if we aren’t willing to hold ourselves accountable, especially in a nonprofit era. One of the first hires that will be made in the nonprofit version of our newsroom is an ombudsperson, or the “People’s Editor.” This editor will not report to the editor of The Spokesman-Review.

When there are questions about the accuracy of a story or even the appearance of something that feels off, this editor will begin the process of making sure our newsroom not only followed standard journalism ethics, but exceeded them. When the investigation is over, the People’s Editor will publish a piece in The Spokesman-Review detailing what they have found.

The People’s Editor also will monitor all of the stories written by our newsroom that involve any of Comma’s partners. Just as important, this editor will often write about how journalism works and answer questions from readers.

Looking ahead

Now that some of your questions have been answered, we hope that it is becoming clear as to just how much work and thought has gone into making all of this happen. On so many levels.

There is so much work still to be done, which will likely lead to even more questions. And we will continue to answer those questions over the next several months in our newspaper, during public events to discuss this transition and through a new podcast that is being produced in partnership with a newspaper trade publication, Editor & Publisher magazine.

The headline in Wednesday’s newspaper proclaimed this as “The People’s Paper.” That is absolutely the goal.

It’s how you evolve from being a “community newspaper” to being the “community’s newspaper.” That’s exactly what The Spokesman-Review will become.