The elaborate hierarchy of "cleanliness" in media funding
Our industry's funding fixation has evolved into a sort of moral purity test and it's reinforcing the authoritarian narrative that all journalism is inherently compromised by its financing.
"I can totally see you as the prison librarian," a friend, editor of a medium sized weekly joked the other day as we discussed the prospects for independent journalism in Hungary. To clarify—the joke was about the prospect of being imprisoned, not my aptitude for library science. I hope.
We are heading into what may be the most challenging period for Hungarian media since I began my journalism career in the late 1990s (following, ironically, a brief stint at an actual library). While the Hungarian government has never been an enthusiastic supporter of independent journalism, the steadyish deterioration of the past 15 years seems to be accelerating in recent weeks. With the moderating influence of U.S. administrations now gone—replaced by active encouragement of authoritarian tendencies across Central and Eastern Europe and beyond—the already paper-thin gloves are coming off entirely.
No one knows exactly what legislation looms on the horizon, but judging by PM Orbán's rhetoric about banning organizations that accepted American funding, everyone is bracing for further repression. Meanwhile, just a four-hour drive from our Budapest office, police in Belgrade are already raiding civil society organizations and fact-checkers over USAID funding.
So yeah, dark jokes and strained laughter have become our daily soundtrack. (Coming up: Black Steel by Tricky)
What these governments in Hungary, Serbia, Georgia and elsewhere—emboldened by the new Musk-doctrine published 280 characters at a time—are weaponizing against critical voices is external funding. Their playbook is straightforward: if you accept money from abroad—be it from the U.S., EU, or Norway—you must be advancing foreign interests. You're an agent, a traitor, someone who should be excluded from public discourse. Editorial independence is a ruse, fact-based journalism is a deception, everyone is trying to further some interest, so either you are with us aiding our important mission or against us undermining our sovereignty.
While it might be somewhat therapeutic for me to share these anxieties with you, what I really want to explore today is our collective fixation on funding. This obsession, though often exploited by autocrats, is also unhelpfully fueled by ourselves.
Fund me, fund me, say that you fund me!
I know many of you appreciate my deep insights into the nuances of the attention economy, so let me share something really profound with you: while a lot of journalism may be free at the point of consumption, journalism does, in fact, cost money to produce.
You are welcome.
What's particularly frustrating about our industry's funding fixation is how it's evolved into a sort of moral purity test. Just over this past month, as our sector is disrupted yet again, I've heard smart people struggling to run newsrooms tell me that:
advertising revenues are unacceptable and compromise the work
audience revenues are a dead end, create bad incentives and restrict access
institutional funding is awful and undermines independence
Okay, it wasn't the same person, but it shows you where we are. We've developed an elaborate hierarchy of "cleanliness" in funding sources that often bears little relationship to actual editorial independence or journalistic quality. People are engaged in some weird competition trying to prove their chosen funding model is the only pure one, while everyone else is making unethical compromises.
Paul Krugman made an apt comparison between American and European "puritanism" a while back – Americans fear someone, somewhere might be having fun; Europeans fear someone might be making money. Similarly, in our industry, there's an inexplicable belief that making money from journalism, regardless of source, is somehow morally suspect.
This funding fundamentalism has created a bizarre situation where organizations spend more energy defending their revenue model than improving their journalism. This judgment applies especially to paywalls, which have somehow become portrayed as enemies of a healthy information ecosystem. "The Truth Is Paywalled But The Lies Are Free!!!4!!!4!" (This actually is a good article, even if I disagree with its conclusion.)
Meanwhile, the people who actually consume our journalism generally don't give a damn about our funding angst. They care whether our reporting is accurate, helps them navigate their world, or holds power to account. No reader has ever told me, "I really appreciated that investigative piece exposing corruption, but I wish your organization had a more diverse revenue mix."
Yes, large advertisers can influence news organizations, and corporate media may have problematic relationships with powerful interests. But a local paper running ads for local businesses doesn't magically transform the publisher into Jeff Bezos. Similarly, while paywalls can restrict access, the NYT has some of the industry's hardest paywalls yet publishes some of the world’s most impactful journalism. And though over-reliance on public sector funding is risky, not all state support comprises receiving newsrooms.
By constantly scrutinizing each other's funding models, we're providing ammunition to those who wish to discredit all independent media. When foundation-funded outlets criticize commercial media for advertiser influence, or when subscription-based outlets sneer at government-funded public broadcasting, we're reinforcing the authoritarian narrative that all journalism is inherently compromised by its financing.
21 grams of moral clarity
Funding is important and it does have an influence on our work. Of course it does. Money always shapes priorities, whether we acknowledge it or not.
We should always strive for transparency and create opportunities to reflect on our choices from time to time. But we also need to accept that all funding comes with challenges. While it would be comforting to pronounce certain funding sources as inherently wrong and others as perfect, it's unfortunately not that simple.
We need to spend less time anxiously measuring our funding models on impossibly sensitive moral scales. These judgments are rarely as quantifiable or objective as we pretend. The perfect moral guidebook to journalism funding doesn't exist, and our fixation on creating one diverts energy from what actually matters: serving our audiences better.
The real measure of our work isn't the immaculate purity of our financial statements but the impact of our journalism. Are we helping people understand their world? Are we holding power to account? Are we creating value for our communities?
Those are the questions that should keep us up at night — not whether our particular funding model would earn us an A+ on some imaginary journalistic ethics exam.
ps.: I hope you have all successfully submitted your excellent “Journalism Partnerships” applications. Now go and have a drink with friends, spend time with your family or pretty much do anything that doesn’t involve making sure the Milestones are consecutively numbered in Part 5 of your proposal.