Qualitative investigation reveals that nonprofit news workers prioritize organizational needs over journalism, suggesting dependency on funders limits journalistic integrity.
This work examines the practices of news workers within the unique funding structures of nonprofit news organizations using qualitative interviews and ethnographic methods. From a political economy perspective, my findings show that organizational concerns are prioritized over journalism by news workers in nonprofit news contexts. I argue this exploits public-service oriented journalists to do unpaid labor. I suggest that dependence on external funders reduces the power of nonprofit news organizations to do journalism.
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Jocelyn McKinnon-Crowley (2026) studied this question.
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