Brazil’s Digital Journalism Association has grown fivefold, bringing together outlets from the country’s most challenging regions and emerging as a recognized voice for press freedom.
Five years ago, a group of 30 independent digital news outlets in Brazil banded together to create an association dedicated to strengthening digital journalism, both professionally and financially.
The result was the Digital Journalism Association (Ajor, for its initials in Portuguese), which has quintupled its membership since its creation in June 2021, making it one of the largest journalism associations in the country.
“I don’t know of any other country that has an organization of this kind for this demographic,” said Rosental Alves, founder and director of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, which supported the association in its creation and early development (the Knight Center publishes LatAm Journalism Review). “And it was very important because it gained a voice in public policy discussions and in some legal proceedings that began to take place.”
The Ajor Code of Conduct is very strict, so not just any organization can become a member, Alves said.
From the beginning, Ajor has been committed to rigorous journalism, defending democracy and giving a voice to a wide range of emerging media outlets to serve as a counterbalance to the historical media concentration in the country.
Since its creation, Ajor has also partnered with other organizations to defend journalists through projects like the Coalition in Defense of Journalism and the National Observatory on Violence Against Journalists and Communicators, an initiative of the Ministry of Justice.
“Over the past five years, we have seen Ajor raise the level of digital journalism in Brazil and also become a key player in these discussions on a global scale,” Maia Fortes, Ajor's executive director, told LJR.
But while its size, scope and influence have grown, the challenges their members share have also come into focus . For its fifth anniversary, the association conducted a survey among its members that revealed both the diversity of the country’s digital news landscape and their shared concerns — particularly when it comes to financial sustainability.
The full report will be released in full on July 30 in São Paulo during the association’s anniversary celebration.
According to data shared by Ajor, the association has members in all five regions of Brazil, with more than 40 based in the North, Northeast and Central-West — regions that face the greatest barriers to sustainability, the most frequent attacks against news organizations and journalists, and where a single organization is often responsible for all available coverage.
“We are living through a paradoxical moment in which there has never been so much content circulating, while at the same time the way we consume information has changed completely, directly affecting the ecosystem we represent and our relationships with the intermediaries that distribute this information,” Fortes said. Among the biggest concerns identified by members are declining traffic from search engines, excessive dependence on Big Tech apps like Instagram, reliance on grant funding and financial sustainability.
Christian Góes, editor of Mangue Jornalismo, an Ajor member, said the outlet has very strong distribution and engagement numbers, even though it is based in Brazil's smallest state, Sergipe.
And yet, his main concern today is simply how to keep the operation running.
“For us, what really matters is financial sustainability,” he told LJR.
Ponte Jornalismo, a news outlet in São Paolo and another Ajor member, is also focused on solving the sustainability puzzle.
“We've tried many things — we've tried a membership program, bringing our readers in as members; we do one-off projects; we've had models involving the sale of stories; we've organized festivals,” ,” Antônio Junior, also known as Junião, Ponte's director of programs, told LJR.“But even so, we haven't been able to overcome our dependence on institutional support, which comes mainly from international foundations.”
He also said that because Ponte covers difficult subjects such as human rights violations, police violence and the justice system, it is harder to engage audiences and potential funders.
“In our country, we have built a perception that has never prioritized these discussions — quite the opposite,” he said. “It has always encouraged the objectification and stigmatization, especially of poor, Black and marginalized communities and Indigenous peoples. Deconstructing the image that marginalized communities are dangerous, and that the bodies of Black and Indigenous people can be violated, remains a complicated task.”
Advertising appeared among the main potential sources of revenue for Ajor’s members. The report says it is associated with better short-term financial results, but also with lower financial resilience.
Pedro Borges of Alma Preta, a São Paulo based outlet that covers news from the perspective of Black journalists, recently illustrated this by discussing the significant increase in audience and engagement during the World Cup. The outlet focused primarily on covering African national teams while also showing that soccer is about more than the game itself.
This, however, did not necessarily help Alma Preta establish new commercial advertising agreements.
“We've realized that, at this point, it's very difficult to secure any advertising support, especially in a market full of influencers. So, for a brand, it seems to have become more attractive to advertise with them than on a news website,” he told LJR.
For Borges, even though journalism no longer depends on advertising like it used to do, the inability to attract and retain new advertisers also makes them more dependent on other sources of revenue, like grants and foundation support.
Despite the challenges, many journalists at Ajor member outlets remain optimistic.
“Independent journalism is much less isolated than it was a few years ago,” Stefano Wrobleski, executive director of InfoAmazonia, told LJR. “Today, there is more collaboration among news organizations, more knowledge sharing and a growing network of local organizations capable of producing high-quality journalism.”
He added that Ajor's trajectory over the past five years helps demonstrate that “although each outlet continues to face challenges, there is a more mature ecosystem with a greater capacity to act collectively
