After the Pandemic, Building Back a Stronger Media: Inspiring Initiatives in Ensuring Media Viability

The problems faced by independent news media, whether online or offline or hybrid, presents a significant threat to society which was made visible, particularly during the pandemic, which highlighted a paradox: While media became more important than ever for citizens as a source of reliable information in an insecure and continuously changing world, newsrooms struggled to pay their bills.

The pandemic brought to crisis point prior trends - for example, between 2009 to 2020, the share of newspapers – key journalism producers – in global advertising spending fell from 23 to 6 per cent. Amidst the gloom of increasing financial pressure, there are learning from the media's creativity and actions in their survival efforts. Journalists, publishers, educators and other media workers have developed and are developing innovative strategies to help strengthen the viability of independent media.

This publication highlights some of these inspiring and educational microstories that include

• Success in cross-border collaboration for investigative journalism;
• Revenue-earning fact-checking services that combat disinformation;
• New business models that leverage audience and advertiser needs;
• Entrepreneurial education for the next generation of journalists; among others, more.

These enterprise-level steps are essential complements to the need for more significant changes in national policies to save - and stimulate -media development all around the world.