IMS launches a global effort for a better economic future for journalism

The Media Viability Manifesto is a global initiative that has been launched to shape the economics needed to safeguard the fundamental right to freedom of expression and access to information around the world. It has been set up to ensure the financial survival of journalism, including in the countries where IMS works.

It has been jointly led by IMS, DW Akademie and Free Press Unlimited with a core group of 13 organisation and developed with input from more than 150 individuals from 55 countries representing 86 organisations. 

It is a direct response to the Windhoek + 30 Declaration’s recognition that there is an “existential threat” to the economic state of independent media. 

The goal is to underpin more structured dialogues across sectors and bring lasting change that will impact the funding landscape for journalism.

Head of Journalism and Media Viability at International Media Support, Dr Clare Cook, has worked in the UK press for more than a decade and as a business viability adviser. She said that media development organisations are looking to address the economic crisis facing news outlets with collective action. 

“News outlets around the world are suffering. They are debilitated from providing public interest news because they are bootstrapping their operations. It has been a continual struggle for the last decade and they are exhausted. 

“Yet the media development community can lack collaboration and coherence in the terrain of viability and sustainability. Too often, interventions are stand-alone, reactive, and short-term. Practical approaches and project implementation tools are rarely coordinated or synchronised, leading to frequent reinvention of the wheel or overlapping efforts.

“If we are going to change the tide of economic vulnerability we have to work together and understand a common starting point in what is a complex field with no normative solution.”

Media around the globe of varying sizes and formats face closure or lack of money. They are struggling to survive because of structural changes to the business model of journalism. Media have seen their traditional revenue streams eroded and are fighting to keep their operations going. 

As journalism struggles to operate safely and be financially viable, and an era of crumbling public trust and support, there are growing fears that communities will no longer have access to the information they need to make choices and stay informed.

This means the critical fabric of democratic societies will crumble while conflict, climate and humanitarian crises escalate.

This common framework called the Media Viability Manifesto will allow actors to be more effective, avoid duplication, coordinate activities and scale up.

It will also help push for international regulatory, legal and market-based reforms. 

Waqas Naeem, who is IMS programme manager in Pakistan and also Co-coordinator, Dynamic Coalition on the Sustainability of Journalism and News Media, from the Internet Governance Forum, said: “The DC-Journalism is involved with and welcomes the development and launch of the Media Viability Manifesto because our digital policy work on the financial sustainability of media has indicated the need for a global framework that can be adapted to local contexts. 

“The Dynamic Coalition has noticed since 2019 that news media, media development organisations, tech companies, regulators and states are approaching the issue from various legal and policy angles that can often be siloed, contradictory or disconnected with similar work in other regions or countries. We believe the Manifesto will provide a joint declaration of policy aims and a shared language to spur action that can help us collectively ensure the financial independence of public interest news media.”

IMS will be working with donors and other key stakeholders to ensure we join forces for a better economic future for journalism. 

The Manifesto includes a roadmap to ensure more support to media, known as a theory of change. It sets out an overarching basis for tailored, context-specific individual strategies and between stakeholders across world regions, ideally all contributing to solving the systemic media viability crisis.

See www.mediaviabilitymanifesto.org for more and to sign up for more information.