Inside MinnPost

Thanks to everyone who applied for a spot on the members team for the upcoming Trivia Battle of the MinnPost Brains.

Ten men, 4 women, 1 couple and Marty.

Don Effenberger, prelim question maestro, reviewed all 16 responses. Counting correct answers, he divvied respondents into two groups.

The highest-scoring 11 will move on to the next round. Names and bios here.

Now it’s up to you. You can vote -- right under the bios -- for your four favorites for the MinnPost members team.

Voting will be open through Wednesday, Nov. 4.

On Sunday, Nov. 8, the four highest vote-getters will go up against the MinnPost staff team. MinnPost news editor Don Effenberger. Co-managing editor Susan Albright. Office manager Gin Kujawa. Contract writer Joe Kimball.

Wondering why we chose two women and two men?

They were the only volunteers.

P.S. Open invitation: Come cheer on the members team -- or the staff team -- or join an audience team at MinnPost’s second birthday party, Sunday, Nov. 8. Free to 2009 members/donors. Non-members $10. RSVP deadline and details here.

MinnPost is switching to a new system for accepting online donations, and one of the benefits is that we can now start accepting recurring payments.   

So if you want to donate $50 a year, but prefer to pay it in four quarterly installments, you can do that. Or if you want to donate $120 a year, you can set it up so that your credit card is charged $10 every month, until you tell it to stop. (But the minimum donation for a transaction is $10, so you can’t, for example, give $5 a month.)

And if you continue to give your annual donation all at once, you can set it so that it makes the same donation a year from now.

Our new online donations partner is called Razoo, and it offers other advantages as well.

• Razoo takes no transaction fees, thanks to support from its foundation partners. So 100% of your donation to MinnPost goes to MinnPost.

• When you register with Razoo, you can learn about the vast majority of tax-exempt nonprofits in the U.S., and donate to as many as you like, without having to keep submitting your credit card information. You can keep track of all of your charitable receipts in one place so you’re organized for tax time.

• You can also register with Razoo through Facebook, and then use your Facebook email and password to log into Razoo.

• Being on Razoo gives MinnPost exposure to a community of people interested in making donations online. And when you make a donation to MinnPost, you can use Facebook or Twitter to tell people why.

Using Razoo to donate is simple. When you click on the MinnPost donate button, you’ll now be taken to the MinnPost page on Razoo. You don’t have to register with Razoo to make a donation, but you do have to register to set up a recurring donation. Once you’re registered, you can donate to as many nonprofits as you like.

Razoo is also the donation system for the new portal for Minnesota online philanthropy, GiveMN, described in an article today by Scott Russell.

MinnPost Editor and CEO Joel Kramer has been named a Purpose Prize Fellow, for social innovation in an encore career after age 60. Joel was honored for his work founding and running MinnPost.

Civic Ventures, a national think tank on boomers, work and social purpose, announced the winners of its 2009 prizes today: There were five winners of $100,000 prizes, five more who won $50,000, and 49 who were selected as Purpose Prize Fellows. 

There were more than 1,000 applications this year. Joel was nominated by MinnPost supporter Sue Herridge.

“It’s an honor to be listed among these social innovators, and to be recognized by an organization that believes that over-60 is a great time of life to be working on the challenges our society faces,” Joel said.

Sherry Lansing, CEO of the Sherry Lansing Foundation and former chair of Paramount Pictures' Motion Picture Group, chaired the jury that selected this year's winners. The 24 judges are leaders in business, politics, journalism and the nonprofit sector -- including actor Sidney Poitier, social entrepreneur Thomas Tierney, former Senator Harris Wofford and journalist Cokie Roberts.

The winners and 49 Purpose Prize Fellows of 2009 will be honored at a Summit on Innovation Oct. 31 - Nov. 1 at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business' Center on Social Innovation.

You can read the press release on this year’s winners here.

Two weeks ago, I reported on the gender imbalance in applications for spots on the MinnPost members team for the upcoming Trivia Battle of the MinnPost Brains.

I said we’d heard from 10 men and 3 women.

Since then, three more surveys have come in. One joint response from Carol and Dick (married 44 years), one from Jane, and one from Marty.

So our running total is 10 men, 4 women, 1 couple and Marty.

Martha? Martin? No way to tell.    

We also got two comments from readers.

This one from Beth Gaede: I speak only for myself, but "Trivia Battle ..."? Oh, goodie! Another opportunity to compete!

And this one from Mary Ann Dean: Could the paucity of women be linked to the fact that women, on the whole, are paid less than men and there is a $50 charge for this opportunity??

Well, that’s a point.

So if you’re a student or current member of MinnPost who contributes less than $50 a year and wants to try for a spot on the MinnPost members team, just let me know. I’ll gladly make an exception.  

The deadline for submitting a survey response is this coming Saturday, Oct. 24. The questions are here.

The Trivia Battle is part of our 2^nd birthday celebration, Sunday, Nov. 8, 2-5 pm, at St. Anthony Main Event Centre. Free to all 2009 MinnPost donors. Others $10.

With all due respect, I repeat: May the best brains win.

As the profits and the number of journalists employed in mainstream media continue to shrink, should the federal government step in to help sustain local public-affairs journalism?

In a report released today, former Washington Post editor Leonard Downie Jr. and Columbia University professor Michael Schudson say yes.  It’s one of many suggestions that they make, but it figures to be the most controversial one.  To a lot of journalists, taking money from the government would be an outrageous conflict of interest and an invitation to improper pressure on newsgathering.

Downie and Schudson propose that federal money (from taxes on telecommunications or Internet service providers) be distributed the way National Endowment for the Humanities money is distributed locally:  through state-level councils that review and decide on applications for the funding.  The funding would not be for specific stories, but for broader, longer-range innovations in newsgathering and organizational sustainability. Even so, it’s easy to imagine that that process could become highly politicized.

Unlike some of my colleagues in the journalism profession, I’m open to the idea of some federal funding for journalism, especially at the local and regional level, where the decline of the old business model is doing the most damage. Government funding need not lead to de-fanging the watchdog: look at the quality of the news operation of the BBC. But I think there’s a better way than having councils consider grant applications and dole out funds.

Earlier this year, I teamed up with Jon Sawyer, of the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, to write a paper for a Duke University conference, in which we proposed a donor collaborative for nonprofit journalism.  (PDF here.) The idea was simple: Instead of asking everyone interested in supporting this cause to vet every possible recipient, let’s invite donors to collaborate on a fund that will match donations already made to eligible journalism enterprises.  This would ensure that money was being directed to efforts that (a) had demonstrated community support, and (b) were on their way toward sustaining their enterprises through their own fundraising success.

Why not just have government funding of journalism distributed that way - by matching voluntary donations that journalism enterprises are able to gather in their own communities, both from individuals and foundations?  This would funnel the money to enterprises that are demonstrating that they have community support. 

Under such a system, there would be no politics involved in the decision-making. There would be no accusations that the administration is favoring one ideology or using its clout to reward or punish. And the matching funds would make it a lot more attractive for local news organizations to ask their readers or viewers for voluntary support. It costs money to raise money, but if the money you raise will be matched, it becomes a better use of an organization’s limited resources. 

What do you think?  Should the federal government support public-affairs journalism?  Should journalism enterprises be willing to take the money?  If so, how should the dollars be distributed?

Dan Haugen, who has been writing the Business Agenda feature for MinnPost, is moving on next month. He has accepted a full-time job for bringmethenews.com, a new media outlet run by former KARE 11 anchor Rick Kupchella, who describes its mission as filtering the news for Minnesotans and doing original reporting.

We thank Dan for his fine work here, and we wish him the best. And now we’re thinking about what comes next for business coverage for MinnPost.

We invite your thoughts. What kind of business coverage would make you want to check out MinnPost every day? Got any names of who could do the reporting and writing?

You can comment here, or you can email me privately at jkramer (at) minnpost (dot) com.

The not-for-profit model for regional journalism, which MinnPost has been a leader in developing, is getting a big boost in two major population centers: the state of Texas, and California’s Bay Area.

At a conference I attended last week at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., the principal  funder of the Texas startup, John Thornton, was one of the presenters. He explained [PPT] to the crowd how a venture capitalist like himself came to the conclusion that for-profit public-affairs journalism had a bleak future and that the nonprofit model could ensure a steady flow of serious public-affairs reporting to a region. Thornton is backing up his words with $1 million of his own money, and has already raised $2.5 million more from individuals and foundations. The Texas Tribune will launch in November, and I have agreed to serve on its advisory board.

The conference was sponsored by the Graduate School of Journalism at University of California-Berkeley, which recently announced that it will be part of a partnership launching a nonprofit news site for the Bay Area with an even bigger startup gift: $5 million from San Francisco financier Warren Hellman.

These are heady numbers. We made the decision to launch MinnPost two years ago after we had secured commitments of $850,000 from four donors. At the time, that was the biggest stash for a regional nonprofit startup. We’ve since raised more, of course, but nowhere near as much as Thornton has assembled before he leaves the starting gate.

Not everyone is on the nonprofit journalism bandwagon. Jack Shafer wrote at Slate.com last week that it substituted one flawed business model for another. He raised the problem of preserving editorial independence from influence by funders: “No matter how good the nonprofit operation is, it always ends up sustaining itself with handouts, and handouts come with conditions.“

I don’t buy his argument for this reason: Journalism costs money, and money has to come from somewhere. If it’s not foundations or major donors, it’s advertisers or (in the case of the BBC) the government. If needing money makes for a flawed model, then every model for doing public-affairs journalism will be flawed. The key is to be committed to editorial independence and to be transparent about where you’re getting your money.

My personal mission is to sustain high-quality professional regional journalism while adapting it to the dramatically different digital environment. The for-profit model is a great way to sustain an enterprise, if — to state the obvious — you believe you’re engaged in an activity that can be profitable and you see a path for creating that profit.

Historically, media have relied very heavily on advertising to produce the revenue, but the Internet is sharply eroding the price advertisers will pay to reach eyeballs. For-profit publishers are struggling to figure out if they can keep things afloat by charging online readers and viewers, but so far no one has succeeded in getting a lot of people to pay for general news.

A nonprofit like MinnPost has the advantage that it can ask readers for donations. These are not what Jack Shafer calls handouts. They are a revenue stream based on a voluntary commitment to support something that builds our community. We recently passed the 1,500 mark for annual members, who give us anywhere from $10 to $20,000 a year, with most giving either $50 or $100. (What, you’re not a member yet? Please!)

We also can get foundation grants, which this year are contributing more than $400,000 to support our journalism. We sell advertising and sponsorships, too, but right now I don’t see any way we could come close to paying all the bills just from that. One strategy I see some local for-profit sites succeeding with is keeping their costs extremely low — but our goal is to pay professional journalists for their work.

I had to leave the conference at Mountain View a few hours early and hop a Caltrain, because I was speaking at a workshop before the opening of the Online News Association annual conference in San Francisco. The workshop was called “Fund My Media,” and I was appearing late in the day, along with Voice of San Diego CEO Scott Lewis. We were billed as the ones who had hit the million-dollar mark in annual revenue. The Voice of San Diego is 4 years old, and we’re the baby at almost 2.

The Voice and MinnPost do some things differently, but we agreed that being a news publisher today is both exhilarating and challenging, and that it’s important to diversify your revenue streams. It’s also important to experiment and keep learning — from your readers and the voluminous data that pour in — about both the things that work and the things that don’t.

At MinnPost, we are confident that the nonprofit model for regional public affairs journalism can work, and we thank every one of you who is helping us prove it. We expect at year-end to report substantial progress on every important measure compared with our first full year in 2008. 

Of course, if anyone out there wants to donate $5 million, or even $1 million, so that we can ensure our future and do this on a bigger scale, please give me a call.

Lots of MinnPost-related talk yesterday and today about men and women -- writing, reading, joining book clubs, falling in love.

What do you make of this:

The first nine people who’ve answered the prelim questions for Trivia Battle of the MinnPost Brains are Paul, Brad, Marshall, Joe, 2 Johns, 2 Mikes and a Matt.

Maybe all the female brains are too busy during the week -- working, carpooling, nurturing relationships and going to book clubs.

If that’s true, we’ll expect a slew of responses from women over the weekend.    

Hmmm. Just noodling.

Monday update: Finally, a small step toward gender balance. Applicants for MinnPost members team: 10 men, 1 woman. Thank you Betsy.

Tuesday update: 10 men, 3 women.

Reminders: Application deadline Oct. 24. Members team open to everyone who has donated at least $50 to MinnPost in 2009.

May the best brains win.

The Trivia Battle of the MinnPost Brains is now open for business.

Round 1: Compete for a spot on the MinnPost members team by following some simple instructions -- and answering some not-so-simple questions.

Application deadline -- Oct. 24. Open to everyone who has donated at least $50 to MinnPost in 2009.

Round 2: Names and brief bios of top scorers in the prelim round will be posted by Oct. 27.

Round 3: Online voting open Oct. 28 to Nov. 4. This is a popularity contest. Email your friends. And your mother.

Round 4: The four top vote-getters will compete against the MinnPost staff team on Sunday, Nov. 8 at MinnPost’s 2nd anniversary celebration.

Smart but not so confident?
Audience members can participate too. In writing. Just like at an Irish pub.

And the top-scoring audience team will compete in a bonus round against the official MinnPost members and staff teams.  

A great offer to get this going
Everyone who submits legitimate answers to at least 10 of the prelim questions will be entered in a drawing.

Legitimate does not mean correct. But forget about Daffy Duck.

We’ll give away three of MinnPost’s new T-shirts.

No Britney. No Paris. No Lindsay.

But a great shirt for a trip to a pub.

MinnPost video journalist Steve Date and Rich Cornell have won an honorable mention in the Minnesota Historical Society’s "1968 Project" film festival for their film “Reluctant Dissent: James P. Shannon.”

The film documents the life of Shannon, who as a bishop in 1968 wrote to Pope Paul VI disagreeing with the pope's position on birth control. Shannon later resigned his position. You can view the film and other award winners here.

Date’s latest documentary is “Welcome to Coalwood,” the story of a small coal-mining community in West Virginia that was the hometown of Homer Hickam and The Rocket Boys, who were featured in the 1999 film, "October Sky".   Date's film will be shown in West Virginia this weekend.  To learn more about the movie, go here.