TIERRE DE NADIE (ECUADOR)
Challenges
In contexts where civic space is limited, where investigative journalism is prosecuted or intimidated, how do you find committed partners for content creation and syndication as na-tion-wide teams report on corruption in areas outside the capital and look for local partners to co-create and publish that content.
Solution
To achieve this, Tierre de Nadie created alliances and projects with local media in different regions of Ecuador. The main example is their research unit in the city of Durán, where they collaborate together with a local outlet to reach users in the region directly. They build alliances with individuals and organizations with expertise in advertising, finance and other areas, who also shared their values in defending freedom of expression. When building alliances, the message is clear: it is important to have a clear goal for each partnership and approach potential partners with a tailored suggestion, clearly explaining the collaboration’s structure. An opportunity might be offering options (show what you’d do with different amounts of funding, or different levels of time commitment) to increase the chance of a ‘yes’. At Tierra de Nadie, one of the keys to achieving these goals was refining the organizational structure of the newsroom.
Puma Podcasts in the Philippines (a country with a lower level of willingness to pay for news) has done just that. Consulting was part of the business model from the start, Executive Editor Roby Alampay told IPI’s World Congress earlier this year. In his words, the team “over-capacitated and then sold that capacity” – producing podcasts for other media organizations, foundations and companies as well as offering training.
The other option is using your expertise in the topic and/or the audience you cover. This might be a B2B publication offering consulting to clients in their industry, or a niche media organization sharing their expertise and knowledge of their audience (of course, if using audience data for consulting, news media should be transparent with their audience and choose consulting client projects that are also in the audience’s interest).