Finding the Funds for Journalism to Thrive: Policy Options to Support Media Viability

This brief comes as part of the UNESCO series World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development. The brief addresses how policymakers can best respond to the severe financial crisis threatening the supply of independent journalism. It provides a typology of global responses, assesses their pros and cons, and makes 22 actionable recommendations. These recommendations include: Creating multistakeholder national commissions/task forces to investigate the challenges and propose solutions for mobilizing resources; considering giving tax breaks to local independent news outlets, or vouchers for subscriptions, along with subsidies for hiring local news reporters, especially where the viability of local news is under extreme pressure, or where ‘news deserts’ have evolved; providing subsidies for news entities to hire dedicated journalists to report on critical issues – such as climate change; municipal affairs; elections and threats to Democracy; public health; gender and other diversities, and migration among others. It builds on the Windhoek+30 Declaration, which underlines media viability as a core principle of information as a public good.