mutualism – Looks Like New

How Are 24 Colorado Newspapers Staying Locally Owned?

MEDLab — Fri, 25 Jun 2021 00:00:16 +0000

After years of shedding reporters and newsrooms, Colorado is home to a new experiment in sustainable journalism. In early May, the National Trust for Local News announced it was acquiring Colorado Community Media, a network of 24 newspapers in the Denver Metro area, via the Colorado News Conservancy, a new public benefit corporation. The Colorado News Conservancy is to be majority owned by the journalist-owned, online-only Colorado Sun. The deal was financed through impact investment funding from FJC, the Gates Family Foundation, the Colorado Trust, and the American Journalism Project, in a first-of-its kind model.

What does this mean for people who rely on Colorado Community Media? How will this relationship change the news ecosystem in Colorado, and what consequences could it have for local media nationally? We will hear from leading people behind this deal, Melissa Milios Davis (Gates Family Foundation), Lillian Ruiz (National Trust for Local News), and Larry Ryckman (Colorado Sun), about how it works and what they hope it will produce.

Mutualist infrastructure: A conversation with Sara Horowitz

MEDLab — Fri, 28 May 2021 00:00:22 +0000

As the US federal government considers once-in-a-generation investments in infrastructure, is it possible to also enable a new commitment to a democratic economy? Sara Horowitz is the founder of the Freelancers Union and author of the new book Mutualism, which presents a powerful vision for “building the next economy from the ground up. In this conversation, we explore strategies for bringing the mutualist tradition of unions, cooperatives, and community ownership from the margins into the center of economic policy-making.

This conversation was co-sponsored by the Media Enterprise Design Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder and Zebras Unite.

Can artists control their own business?

MEDLab — Fri, 27 Nov 2020 00:00:06 +0000

Art has often been the vanguard of new tech. It was through art that many people got interested in the Internet to begin with, or became willing to pay for subscription services. But too often, large corporations take advantage of business models that artists work to create. What if artists owned and governed their own business models? Austin Robey is co-founder of Ampled, a platform for musicians, owned and governed by the musicians themselves, along with their supporters. He describes how building an online business looks different when artists are in charge.