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My guest on this edition of the Marketing Edge and I were on a panel a while back discussing how journalism is changing. Joel Kramer has spent his career in journalism. He was the editor of the Minneapolis Star Tribune for the majority of the 1980s and served as president and publisher through much of the 1990s.

The landscape for journalism in this decade is like nothing this respected newsman has ever seen. Kramer explains he thought he was ready to walk away from news, but the challenge of shaping journalism in this new media era was too much a part of him to go unanswered. He founded MinnPost, a non-profit website of daily news during the week, reported by professional journalists. Its business model includes individual supporters at various levels as well as foundation grants.

In this podcast, Kramer and I discuss how MinnPost came to be, the challenges for journalism, and the impact on democracy made by the changes in the way news is gathered and reported.

You can sum up the challenge for journalism this way: the bottom line, is the bottom line. In the future, who will pay for quality journalism, especially at the local level? How much cost efficiencies can you squeeze out of the production of news that doesn’t involve labor costs?

Marketing Edge Notes:
The winner of the book the Numerati is Bill Dougherty of ScoreLogix.

We are giving away a support membership to MinnPost, to enter the drawing to become a member, email us at marketingedge AT providentpartners DOT net and put MinnPost in the subject line.

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