The sustainability of journalism doesn't depend on a single business model, but on companies' abilities to adapt and experiment in the face of constant disruption. This is the main conclusion of the research "News Tech: Business Models and the Transformation of Journalism in the Digital Age," conducted by Brazil’s Insper Institute of Education and Research and released in late September.
The study analyzed how media companies have reconfigured their editorial and financial strategies to respond to consumer fragmentation, platform dependence and technological acceleration. The work combined a systematic review of 76 academic articles, a consultation with 101 experts from 32 countries and a documentary analysis of 187 media outlets recommended by these experts.
According to the research, the sustainability of news organizations is less linked to the adoption of a formula and more to the ability to align the editorial proposal with the financing structure.
“What differentiates the most resilient companies is their ability to adapt,” Guilherme Fowler, research coordinator, told LatAm Journalism Review (LJR).
The study presents the LORR framework, an analytical matrix that classifies companies into four profiles: Laboratory, Odyssey, Relic and Refuge, along two axes: editorial segmentation (generalist or niche) and diversity of revenue sources (restricted or diversified).
Laboratories are niche, specialized outlets with diversified revenue streams, such as Brazil’s Nexo and the U.S.’s Vox, which serve as testing grounds for new formats and monetization.
Odyssey characterizes generalist outlets that have expanded their revenue streams beyond advertising and basic subscriptions to increase economic resilience. Two examples cited by the study are The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Refuges are niche outlets that serve a highly engaged audience, with few revenue streams, such as premium subscriptions or philanthropic funding. The study cites Brazil’s Agência Pública and Spain’s elDiario.es as examples.
Finally, Relic encompasses generalist media outlets that operate with a limited number of traditional revenue streams, facing the challenge of balancing credibility with the need for innovation, such as the BBC and Fox News.
To analyze each profile, the researchers selected the media outlets that topped the list of most cited by the international communications experts who participated in the study.
"The framework provides a lens that helps managers and analysts interpret the landscape of where companies are and where they could go," Fowler said. "This is not part of any previous studies."
Research shows that niche media outlets tend to have more diversified revenue structures and greater agility to experiment with new formats and products. Generalist outlets, on the other hand, remain dependent on traditional advertising and subscriptions, making them more susceptible to audience downturns and organizational rigidity.
"Generalists can learn to be more dynamic, given their structure and tendency toward structural and cultural inertia," Fowler said. "Niche outlets can look at how larger companies have built support structures that help them operate day-to-day."
In addition to creating the framework, the research also identified six key trends reshaping journalism. They are: changes in news consumption, the proliferation of new formats, the challenge of dependence on third-party ecosystems, data-driven journalism, the integration of artificial intelligence and automation and the growing role of technology professionals.
"I don't see one trend as the 'most disruptive,'" Fowler said. "They're connected, and it's their combination that creates a disruptive environment."
Paula Miraglia, co-founder of Nexo Jornal and Gama Revista, and CEO of Momentum – Journalism & Tech Task Force (Handout photo)
The research findings resonate with the experience of Paula Miraglia, co-founder of Brazil’s Nexo Jornal and Gama Revista. She’s now CEO of Momentum – Journalism & Tech Task Force and spoke at the launch of the Insper study, which categorizes Nexo as a “Laboratory.”
Miraglia currently sees three distinct levels of media dependence on so-called Big Tech: financing, distribution and innovation.
Regarding financial dependence, she cites Google News Showcase, a program that provides funding that contributes to many organizations' revenue, albeit small in some cases.
"You have a dependency because you structure your operation knowing that these resources will be available," she told LJR.
When it comes to distribution, she noted that the platforms are the main intermediaries between outlets and readers.
“Consequently, we are highly susceptible to changes in algorithms and strategies,” she said.
Miraglia said the final dependency on innovation is very difficult to overcome.
“For a long time, our industry relied on tools provided by the platforms, and I think they had the effect of inhibiting our ability and appetite to innovate,” she said.
Miraglia said being closer to the audience and strengthening direct communication channels with readers, whether through newsletters, push notifications, or apps, is one way to reduce dependence on large technology platforms. The journalist also emphasizes the importance of revenue diversification.
In the case of Nexo, she cited the outlet's ties to research and academia as an example of diversification. She said this ultimately led to the creation of Nexo Políticas Públicas, an academic-journalistic platform that works with research centers of excellence and is supported by philanthropies that support these research systems.
"This created a model for special coverage for us. We navigated the challenges of revenue sources, but also understood the opportunities that arose given our position as an editorial product and as a company," Miraglia said. "Pure journalism is very difficult to sustain, but it has great value. Diversification is a mantra for the industry. Betting on just one path—only advertising or only subscriptions—is not ensuring the life of anyone.
Journalist and researcher Carla Miranda, editor of Brazilian newspaper Estadão, has looked closely at how news organizations are adapting their business models to external pressures, like those outlined by the Insper study.
She recently published research on the sustainability of journalism in the age of artificial intelligence, developed as part of a fellowship at the Reuters Institute in Oxford. She proposes that newsrooms use their knowledge capital—made up of brand equity, audience relationships, talented people, and institutional knowledge—as an interdependent system to create a fortress against external shocks.
"External threats to journalism will always exist and will only increase. What we have to do is build our barriers. What is our shield? Otherwise, we will live from one shock to the next," Miranda told LJR. "These four pillars, for me, are these successive barriers of protection. And this is individual to each company."
Among the four pillars she proposes, Miranda identifies talent as the most neglected by news organizations. According to her research, talented journalists anchor editorial quality and foster new relationships with audiences, as well as the creation of potential new products. However, this only materializes if companies are structured to support them.
The researcher sees human talent as an asset stored within newsrooms and advocates that they map the potential of their employees.
"When you lose a talent, you don't just lose the person, you lose their network of readers, the connections they had within the company, their sources. We worry when we lose a subscriber, but we don't worry about the loss of that person, which leads to the loss of this entire network," she said. "This knowledge about what each person does, each person's potential, must be structured, mapped, and available even to others within the company itself."
Aiming to transform this discourse into concrete action, the research includes a practical guide to help newsrooms take the first step in mapping their "knowledge capital." Miranda emphasizes, however, that this exercise requires clarity and realism. The idea is not to carry out wishful thinking about what newsrooms would like to have, but rather a realistic assessment of the real assets they possess, which could even open up different revenue streams.
"How can you better manage your organization's knowledge? What can we do that others can't? Where is this knowledge stored? In people, processes, formats? Is it documented and accessible to other areas and teams within the newsroom? What can be turned into a product?" she said. "When you try to bring it to reality, which is the most complex. I tried to map this out, but each company has to do this analysis if it believes it's a viable path."
