In America’s “undercovered or uncovered” southern states, a ‘not-for-profit’ publishing venture is thriving, with a fourth Deep South Today newsroom planned for Arkansas later this year.
It’s a success story Nieman Lab’s Sophie Culpepper notes with the observation that the three year-old is “threading the needle between ‘lean and mean’ and ‘aggressive expansion’.”
And the extent to which things have changed: from the lack of wi-fi a decade ago – when a staffer used an upside-down cardboard box as a desk – to “today’s Pulitzer-winning powerhouse” one of three newsrooms making up the network. Others are Verite News in New Orleans and newly-launched The Current in Lafayette, the Garrison Project having also joined the network last year, with founder Ethan Brown as special projects editor.
Far from the cardboard desk at Mississippi Today, Adam Ganucheau has risen to be the network’s editor-in-chief, and more recently executive editor and chief content officer of a network that has more than 80 employees and US$10 million-plus budget. Culpepper says recent developments include an investigative reporting cooperation with the New York Times, and a video operation, both supported by a US$3 million donation from board chair Andy Lack.
She notes a network model in which independent editorial operations share infrastructure including payroll, tech, and business and audience staff, is critical, quoting chief executive Warwick Sabin that “it’s the only thing that can work” in an under-resourced region such as the Deep South. Philanthropy accounts for about 55 per cent of revenue, and albeit vital, is looked upon as “seed capital” with which to build infrastructure and maximise revenue from other sources, including memberships.
Ahead of the Arkansas launch, Sabin says he is reminded of Mississippi before Mississippi Today’s 2016 start-up, with large swathes of the state undercovered or uncovered, and quotes Medill’s 2025 State of Local News report, which puts Local Journalist Equivalents at 8.1 per 100,000 people. There are hopes Arkansas Today may also be able to prop up smaller rural newspapers “as a sort of wire service”, as it does in Mississippi.
After that, he says, the network “is aggressively looking at other places to expand.”
There’s a fear of “trying to do too much too quickly”, and an urge to maintain a startup-like culture, but also inspiration in this tale of growth. Ganucheau talks of “trying to be as lean and mean as humanly possible”, and the risk of slipping backwards.
Sabin warns that too much change in the industry, in technology and in consumption habits makes certainty impossible: “The economic landscape is always uncertain whether you’re talking about the business of journalism or the philanthropic landscape, so I think we’re all going to have to keep hustling and adapting and evolving according to circumstances.”
Read the full Nieman Lab report here.
Pictured: Mississippi Today moved last year to premises in the Lamar Life Building (left)