February 28, 2012

Philadelphia: Neil Budde takes helm of emerging local journalism network

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By Amy Gahran

After a year-long search, Temple University has hired Neil Budde to lead the Philadelphia-area news and information collaborative funded by the William Penn Foundation. As the founding CEO, Budde says his job is to “create a unified vision” for this network…

Most recently, Budde was executive vice president at ePals (a K-12 social learning network) and president of DailyMe (a startup for personalized news and information). Previously, Budde was editor-in-chief of Yahoo News, as well as founding editor and publisher of The Wall Street Journal Online (WSJ.com).

“What interests me about this opportunity is that there is a rich ecosystem of folks doing lots of different forms of journalism and local information in the Greater Philadelphia Area,” said Budde. “In addition to the mainstream media, there are many organizations covering special topics—sites like Plan Philly, Technically Philly, and more. I think we can pull together some of those efforts into a more cohesive network, and support them with technology, ad sales, and business operations to help make them more financially viable.”

In addition to fostering the emerging vibrant media ecosystem, Budde hopes that the network will encourage new voices to participate: “People who may want to do something like what those other sites are doing, but don’t know how to get started or don’t have any infrastructure or support.”

One of the initial obstacles for this effort is its name. So far, it’s been called the Philadelphia Public Interest Information Network (PPIIN)—which doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue.

“I know, I know,” said Budde. “I’m working on it. I have a document on my computer where I’m collecting ideas, and I’m bouncing them off a few people. I’ve had some good responses to a few. I want make sure the name fits the shared vision that we’re moving toward fairly quickly for what this network will be.”

On a more practical level, Budde is working on setting up the network as a nonprofit corporation. “One of challenges is the way we’re currently operating, under the Temple University School of Communications and Theater, that makes it harder for us to hire people. Breaking the network off as a separate 501(c)(3) corporation will allow us to bring people on board.”

Creating the separate nonprofit entity also will help the network diversify its revenue sources. “We’re getting great support from the William Penn Foundation, but our intent is to find other backers and supporters. Philly has a lot of opportunities in that regard,” said Budde.

The collaborative journalism network is emerging at an especially troubled time for the city’s mainstream media landscape.

The Philadelphia Media Network (which operates the city’s two daily papers, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Daily News, as well as Philly.com) may be sold for the fourth time in six years. There are allegations that the newspaper’s management has been muzzling reporters from covering the negotiations.

NPR reports that the group of investors currently seeking to buy PMN includes “two of the region’s most connected Democrats: former mayor, governor and Democratic National Committee Chairman Ed Rendell and New Jersey political boss George Norcross III. Both men and their associates have been subjects of intense reporting by the papers. Other investors include a major developer and a leading owner of Philadelphia’s National Hockey League team, the Flyers.”

Budde is watching these developments closely. “Certainly, one opportunity for our network is to emulate a model like ProPublica to collaborate with existing mainstream media outlets for certain kinds of coverage. But whether we can or will do that depends on the people involved,” he said. “I know several people at PMN and I’d love to work on them, but it’ll take time for them to sort out their future. In the long run, this may open additional wallets for local coverage—who knows?”

To gather ideas and context, Budde is talking to other local news and information projects from around the country, many of which are supported by community foundations. “Every community is unique, and what works in one place may not work in another, but there’s a big base of experience out there we can learn from,” he said.

Budde is actively soliciting ideas and context about how to help a local news and information ecosystem thrive. He invites people to contact him by e-mail or on Twitter (@neilbudde) to engage him on these topics.

The News Leadership 3.0 blog is made possible by a grant to USC Annenberg from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

The Knight Digital Media Center at USC is a partnership with the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism. The Center is funded by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

By Amy Gahran, 02/28/12 at 5:27 pm