The media and journalism worlds have been beaten up for so many years that it's hard to have hope. But the indie, worker-owned digital media we see rising today remind me of how alt-weeklies used to inspire. Maybe the New Alt Media is a way forward. www.anildash.com/2024/06/14/t...
You mentioned like 70% of the sites I'm subscribed to right now - and most of the rest are nestled in the nonprofit nod - this is very much in my wheelhouse.
Collective pubs are a great model. Nonprofits, in general, are a super-important part of the present and future ecosystem. But everyone with a stake in the future of journalism needs to continue to lobby for public funding. It's the only way we'll ever have enough newsroom jobs to get the job done.
As someone who started one I can report: worker-owned, like non-profit, is a structure but not a business model. It doesn’t answer the question of how to fund or sustain.