by Steve Reinbrecht
The Reading Eagle has had recent stories and editorials about the owners of the big Philadelphia newspapers donating them to a nonprofit foundation.
In general, more people are reading the news than ever, but getting them to pay for it is the hard part. In any case, the world needs new ways to fund good journalism – which is necessary for good leadership on every level.
In a letter to the Reading Eagle, Kevin Murphy, president of Berks County Community Foundation, wrote: “Nonprofit ownership of news media outlets is hardly new. Propublica, The Christian Science Monitor and NPR have long provided this country with some of its best (and hardest-hitting) journalism. The list of nonprofit-owned media outlets is actually quite long, and their editorial quality seems relatively unquestioned.”
In fact, Berks County has tried nonprofit journalism, but it fizzled.
In 2009, Murpy’s organization raised more than $500,000 to start bctv.org, designed as a website to support investigative and citizen journalism in Berks. I left my job as a copy editor at the Eagle to become the bctv.org managing editor.
“The web-based Hub [news platform] will include in-depth reports on local issues by an independent investigative journalist, supported and amplified by regional citizen journalists. An editor will manage the Hub and provide web-based opportunities for community feedback, completing the information cycle,” according to the business plan, written by the community foundation.
The business plan said the project was to “adhere to strictest journalistic standards and ethics.”
That’s what got me in trouble. After three years, when the grant money ran out, BCTV executive director Ann Sheehan fired me for insubordinately posting a link on bctv.org after she had told me not to -- a link to a newsworthy statement by then-Mayor Vaughn Spencer. I was fired for doing journalism, but not one of the originally gung-ho supporters of bctv.org defended me, except for then-board member and former Reading Mayor Karen Miller. Another board member told me it was time to lose my ideals.
Since then, bctv.org has not had a professional editor. It has turned into a bulletin board for news releases. It seems to have little or no original content. See for yourself.
The reason it fizzled, and perhaps the reason Murphy didn’t mention the experiment in his letter, was that the wrong non-profit was selected.
Leaders at Berks Community Television had no interest in doing journalism or effectively promoting the project. Staff had no skills or interest to find sponsors or expand coverage to get more donations, or even spell names correctly. One of the colleges would have been a much better choice.
The Reading Eagle could use some competition, however it gets funded.
Half of bctv.org’s money was local, half was from the Knight Foundation, a non-profit whose goal is “promoting journalistic
excellence in the digital age.”
It's not happening in Berks County.
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