3. Assessing new business models for news

The academic experts we interviewed each suggested that research on emerging business models for professional journalism would make a valuable contribution. Academic research should, in Searls’ words, “study the economics of whatever future media might be.” The Tow Center should be positioned to make a contribution to journalism both where adsupported media thrive, and where they do not. Of course, access to intimate business data from publishers and news outlets is essential to develop this role in identifying, understanding, and teaching new business models for journalism. Based on initial queries, publishers do not reject out of hand the idea of sharing information on their investments — human, financial, and otherwise — in the Internet, and on the success of those investments. The history of similar “benchmarking” efforts in journalism (for instance, from the NAA) suggests that obtaining data is difficult and low response rates are the norm. Nevertheless, it is clear that news ventures are deeply interested in such comparative analysis and that an independent, university‐based research center might be in a good position to aggregate data to provide it.