Profit or Nonprofit? A Debate over Journalism’s Future

About this episode

The episode discusses the contrasting models of journalism, focusing on the rise of nonprofit news outlets amidst the decline of traditional newspapers.

While the newspaper industry continues to contract, nonprofit news outlets have proliferated over the past decade. But dismissing profitable models for journalism is premature. How can journalism survive? Perhaps the question would once have sounded unduly panicked, but it has only grown more pressing over the past twenty years. Between 2004 and 2019, newspapers lost an astonishing 77 percent of their jobs—more than any other industry on record, according to the Bureau of Labor Statisti...

Topics covered

• journalism
• nonprofit news
• newspaper industry
• media business models
• future of journalism

Keywords

• journalism
• nonprofit
• newspapers
• media
• business models
• employment
• Bureau of Labor Statistics

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: newspaper industry, nonprofit news outlets, Bureau of Labor Statistics

More episodes of The Kicker

• Sports Illustrated’s Emma Baccellieri on covering the changing world of women’s basketball. · June 11, 2026 · 54 min
• How Documented is reinventing immigration coverage. · May 21, 2026 · 53 min
• The Old Playbook of Power and Influence Is Different Now · May 14, 2026 · 57 min
• The Globe’s Emily Sweeney breaks out of Boston. · May 7, 2026 · 44 min
• How Elon Musk is colonizing the future. · May 4, 2026 · 1h 4m
• Taking Back Saturday: “We’re sports people. We like to score.” · April 23, 2026 · 49 min