By Granite State Report
Short version: Local news doesn’t have a revenue problem so much as an incentive problem. Granite State Report is fixing the incentives by making the newsroom democratically owned, transparently governed, and revenue-diverse. That combination builds trust, resilience, and impact—without chasing clicks or courting hedge funds.
The problem we’re solving (no euphemisms)
- Ad markets are captured by platforms; programmatic pennies won’t fund watchdog reporting.
- Newsroom consolidation has stripped communities of accountability and context.
- “Membership” without real power is just a subscription with a tote bag.
- Trust is broken because readers are treated like leads, not owners.
If we want different outcomes, we need a different ownership structure—and a budget designed for service, not volatility.
The GSR model in one page
Structure: Granite State Report operates as a mission-locked, multi-stakeholder cooperative with a public-benefit charter. One-member-one-vote for people, not dollars. Three member classes share governance:
- Community Owners (readers) – majority of seats, because the public interest is the point.
- Worker Owners (journalists and staff) – guaranteed seats and profit-sharing tied to newsroom health, not pageviews.
- Civic/Business Partners – capped influence; they help sustain the ecosystem without steering coverage.
Mission lock: Our bylaws hard-code editorial independence, a firewall between revenue and reporting, and reinvestment requirements before any surplus distributions.
Open books: We publish an easy-to-read monthly dashboard: cash in/out by category, reserve levels, donor and advertiser rolls, and a public contracts list. Sunlight beats vibes.
How money works (and why it’s sturdier)
Target mix to avoid single-point failure:
- 40% Member Revenue – tiered memberships with sliding scale, patronage dividends when there’s a surplus, and real voting rights.
- 20% Ethical Underwriting/Local Ads – sold through a regional co-op with frequency caps and clear labels. No surveillance, no click quotas.
- 15% Services & Studio – explainers, data visualizations, and civic-tech tools for community groups and small businesses via a separate subsidiary with an ironclad editorial firewall.
- 10% Events & Training – town-hall series, “how local government works” workshops, and FOIA bootcamps.
- 10% Philanthropy – for startup capital and high-cost beats (investigations, data desk). Donors get gratitude, not steering.
- 5% Marketplace – community classifieds, job board, obits, and a transparent rate card.
We build and maintain a 6-month operating reserve and a Restricted Investigations Fund so big stories don’t depend on a monthly CPM.
How power flows (so trust can return)
- Annual Public Assembly sets coverage priorities and elects board seats across all classes.
- Beat Councils (e.g., housing, education, environment) advise reporters, pressure-test assumptions, and surface under-covered angles.
- Citizens’ Jury convened for sensitive calls (e.g., naming minors, graphic material).
- Independent Ombuds with authority to publish unedited findings.
- Transparency by default: open meeting notes, open-source methodology, and a public corrections ledger tied to each story.
This is governance you can feel, not just a mission statement on stationery.
What we publish (service first, spectacle never)
- The Accountability Desk: investigations with receipts—contracts, data, documents—plus a replicable “how we reported this” appendix.
- Explainers & Guides: “What is this board and why does it raise your taxes?” in plain English, with timelines and checklists.
- The Meeting Project: every consequential public meeting summarized within 24 hours—agenda, votes, who showed, what’s next.
- Elections, without theater: side-by-side positions, money flows, and a “claims & sources” tracker.
- Text-line tips + FOIA tracker: you can follow your records request like a package.
Impact isn’t a vibe; it’s a ledger entry: dollars saved, policies changed, and problems fixed. We’ll publish those metrics quarterly.
Guardrails that matter
- No undisclosed sponsored content. Ever.
- No political endorsements. We cover power; we don’t anoint it.
- No data brokerage. We don’t sell your attention or your inbox.
- Clear conflict-of-interest disclosures for staff and board.
- Editorial decisions are unidirectional: business does not cross the firewall.
Why this can scale beyond one newsroom
Democratic ownership + transparent budgets change incentives. When readers are owners:
- Trust rises because people can inspect the sausage—and help make it.
- Costs drop as community expertise plugs holes money can’t fill.
- Revenue stabilizes because diversified lines cushion shocks.
- Talent sticks because staff share in governance and surplus.
- Replication is real because the playbook is open: bylaws, dashboards, and toolkits anyone can fork.
We want this model copied. Please, steal the ideas and improve them. The state wins when every town has a durable watchdog.
What we’re doing now (tangible, not theoretical)
- Publishing our bylaws, budget template, and rate card for public comment each year.
- Launching Beat Councils for housing and schools first—where policy meets people’s wallets.
- Standing up the Meeting Project with a volunteer-to-freelancer pipeline and micro-grants for coverage expansion.
- Opening the Investigations Fund with named donors and quarterly reports on spend and outcomes.
- Piloting the ad co-op so local businesses buy reach without buying influence.
How you can participate
- Become a member-owner. You get a vote, not just a newsletter.
- Underwrite a beat or series—with labeling so crystal-clear it’s boring.
- Join a Beat Council and lend subject-matter expertise.
- Pitch a public meeting your neighbors should know about.
- Partner on training if you’re a school, library, or community org.
If you’re a newsroom leader elsewhere, we’ll share the docs, the math, and the missteps. If you’re a funder, invest in capacity, not vanity metrics. And if you’re a reader, hold us to our own rules—loudly.
The bet we’re making
When ownership is democratic, incentives re-align around service. When money is diversified, journalism stops living month-to-month. When processes are transparent, trust compounds. That’s how Granite State Report plans to make local news boring in the best way: predictable, durable, relentlessly useful—and absolutely fearless.
Let’s build the kind of press a self-governing community deserves.
