Message from Keith
 

So much news about the news business is bad these days, but I want to take this space to spotlight three innovative ideas that, if they work, might point to a somewhat brighter future.

First, in the U.S., President Joe Biden’s sprawling US$2 trillion social spending bill slowly winding its way through Congress contains a little-discussed provision. The bill, as now written, includes a tax credit for local media outlets that hire local reporters.

Under the proposal, local print, broadcast and digital outlets would be able to write off up to US$150,000 in employment taxes for local reporters covering their communities — US$25,000 in the first year and US$15,000 in defrayed taxes in each of the subsequent four years.

Local media has been particularly devastated by the collapse of the old advertising-based business models, leaving many smaller cities, towns and counties without any community-based journalists to play the all-important watchdog role holding elected officials to account.

Some may feel uncomfortable about media outlets, which are supposed to be independent, receiving support from the government, which journalists are supposed to hold in check. I am too. But this is a tax break, not a direct cash subsidy, and it goes where it’s most needed, to support community journalism which has been hardest hit. I say it’s an experiment worth trying.

Also in the U.S., the Biden administration’s new director of the Agency for International Development, or AID, just announced a new “global defamation defence fund” to assist journalists worldwide who are being targeted by frivolous but costly libel and defamation suits.

AID chief Samantha Power, announcing the planned fund, said: "We will offer the coverage to survive defamation claims or deter autocrats and oligarchs from trying to sue them out of business in the first place.” 

She added; "As autocrats grow savvier in their attempts to control and manipulate people, we need to help support a free and fair global press to hold leaders to account.”

It’s a novel idea, and sure to be attacked by those autocrats as “interfering in internal affairs.” But I’m all for it, and let’s see if it works in practice.

A third innovative idea came from Chattanooga, a city of about 200,000 people in the U.S. state of Tennessee. The Chattanooga Times Free Press, one of those  papers hard hit by the collapse of the old business model, decided to cease its weekly print edition and move to an all-digital format, except on Sundays. But they first did something novel; they spent US$4.4 million and bought an Apple iPad for every one of their current subscribers, many of them elderly, so they can continue their subscriptions online.

According to a CNN report on the project, the newspaper will offer weeks of training on the iPad for those who need it, at libraries, community centres and homes. And readers can keep the iPad as long as they keep up their subscription.

A tax break for local news. A global fund for journalists facing crippling and bogus defamation suits. And a free iPad to current print subscribers to switch to the digital version. This shows there’s some really interesting experimentation and innovation going on to help journalism survive. Let’s hope ideas like these succeed.
 

And speaking of help, I’d like to reach out to every member of our HKU Journalism family to ask for your assistance to help sustain our successful Mick Deane Scholarship for Video Journalism. As you may know, Mick was a longtime Hong Kong resident and cameraman who was killed by a sniper’s bullet while covering protests in Egypt in 2013. Since the scholarship was established in his name, we’ve been able to support a half dozen students and help them get a start on their careers in video journalism.

But we need your support to keep the scholarship going, to assist the next generation of visual storytellers. I hope you will consider making a contribution, no matter how small. It will make a big difference in the lives of some future video journalists.

You can hear from some of the past Mick Deane Scholarship winners, and learn more about Mick, here.
 

Keith B. Richburg
Director, Journalism and Media Studies Centre