Above: The six startups making up Matter's inaugural class.

Tomorrow, Matter, the new startup accelerator for media ventures, is hosting its first-ever demo day in San Francisco. Six startups made up of the accelerator's inaugural class will prime to demonstrate and promote the projects they have been developing over the last four months to a group of investors, mentors and entrepreneurs. 

There’s a lot to be excited about – these are our top five:

1. Matter.VC is a unique for-profit accelerator with an informed public mission at its heart. Created by Public Radio Exchange and funded by Knight Foundation and KQED, public media for Northern California, Matter is looking to accelerate companies that can help build a more informed, connected and empowered society. It’s exciting to see accelerator techniques that have helped startups in other sectors being applied to amplify a cohort of companies innovating in ways that can impact media in general— and public media in particular.

2. This is the first class to graduate from Matter, which launched this year. It will be particularly exciting to see how the startups, which entered the program four months ago, have benefitted from interacting with companies facing similar challenges, and how their products and pitches have come along over the course of the program.

3. The companies demoing are solving interesting problems. From Zeega, which is reinventing the way stories can be told online, to ChannelMeter, which provides better Youtube analytics, to SpokenLayer, which transforms the web into narrated audio, the companies being demoed (full list here) have the capacity to address some real unmet needs for journalists and media companies.

4. Attendees will include a combination of investors and media partners. In order for these companies to grow, they will require both capital and customers. The presence of a large number of venture capitalists and media companies at demo day will give them a chance to acquire both and hopefully set them on their way as they move on to post-Matter life.

Above: Google Journalism Fellows visit the soon-to-be "Fusion newsroom" ( a joint venture between Univision and ABC).  

When Google takes an interest in journalism education, we are happy to help.

This summer, Google is launching the Google Journalism Fellowship, recognizing that behind many blue links on Google “is a journalist and that quality journalism is a key ingredient of a vibrant and functioning society.” The eight fellows started off with a week-long visit to Miami, hosted by Knight Foundation.

Fellow Jan Lauren Boyles, a PhD candidate in journalism education at American University, applied for the fellowship because, she explained, “it's essential to understand the industry's disruptions from those working on its front lines.”

“In Miami, industry practitioners are proactively meeting the challenges forged by disruptive innovation, even building brand new, digital-first newsrooms,” Boyles said. “Those who are encountering the greatest success, it seems, are risk takers who are mirroring the agile and experimental culture of startups."

As part of the fellowship, Boyles will spend 10 weeks at the Pew Research Center. Other fellows will be embedded at ProPublica, Investigative Reporters & Editors and other organizations that are focused on improving news and information content and delivery.

 

Above: Data from a new Pew Research Center report, “Nonprofit Journalism: A Growing but Fragile Part of the U.S. News System.”

The question of sustainability comes up a lot when considering the nonprofit news industry. While quality of reporting, or an extensive network of professionals may help organizations build a following—it’s really about the business model. Most people aren’t debating that the work of nonprofit news organizations is smart and relevant. The fundamental question is how to keep them afloat.

In October 2011, Knight published "Getting Local: How Nonprofit News Ventures Seek Sustainability." We featured a handful of nonprofit news organizations and explored their business strategy, economic viability and adaptability—all components of long-term sustainability. Two years later, we’re still wrestling with the same question: How can we strengthen and protect informed communities and local information ecosystems, including nonprofit news organizations?

A new report released today by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, “Nonprofit Journalism: A Growing but Fragile Part of the U.S. News System,” surveyed almost 100 nonprofit news organizations to examine the current landscape. According to the report, there’s positive momentum in the nonprofit news community. People are feeling optimistic. For most organizations that shared 2011 financials, revenues exceeded expenses.  For a fledgling industry, this is very good news. Eight in 10 respondents reported, “they were very or somewhat confident they’d be financially solvent five years down the road.”

However, the pervasive story is that many are facing challenges to their long-term financial health. For example, Pew reports that only 28 percent of the original funders have renewed their start-up funding. Currently, 75 percent of the nonprofit news organizations generate income from a single source of revenue, nearly all of which are foundation grants. So, what’s the viable back up plan? Pew tells us that in nearly one third of the nonprofits, business/advertising and marketing consumed less than 10 percent of their staff time. In effect, they are not developing the business-side resources they need to attract the alternate revenue streams that would ensure their financial future. Finding a path to sustainability will require a dedicated strategy. The good news is that most of the organizations surveyed are now acknowledging this gap—a majority, 54 percent, see business staffing needs as a top priority.

We hope to help them on their way by identifying new avenues for growth. We know from the FCC report on “The Information Needs of Communities,” that there are “real consequences of journalistic shortages.” So, like Pew, we continue to examine the challenge facing the nonprofit news industry. We're now working on our follow-up report to “Getting Local.” We’ve expanded the group of nonprofit sites included in the research, and we’ve broadened the focus. This round we’ll dive deeper into social media strategies, and explore the use of mobile, video and data for many nonprofit news operations. We want to know if creative and new-media strategies can offer a way up.