Poynter is reporting that the Local Independent Online News Publishers has released findings from its Sustainability Audit, an evaluation of the business health of independent local newsrooms that draws on data going back to 2022 and now includes 1,000 audits of about 700 newsrooms. It said LION president Chris Krewson discussed the findings in remarks at the organization's annual awards banquet, telling Poynter that after completing a thousand audits, LION felt confident stating outright that it is possible for a news organization to become a sustaining business.
Poynter said LION presented a special award this summer to 11 newsrooms that reached a level of real sustainability: Bridge Michigan, Cardinal News, The Connecticut Mirror, Fort Worth Report, San Jose Spotlight, Technical.ly, The Baltimore Banner, The Daily Memphian, The Nevada Independent, The Salt Lake Tribune and VTDigger. It said Krewson noted that 10 of the 11 are nonprofits, that almost all are in the American Journalism Project network, and that the path toward sustainability is not necessarily linear for every newsroom.
Krewson told Poynter the audit is not a snapshot of every independent publisher but is a good sampling of the landscape. He said the list does not capture people who went independent without their own URL, including creators and newsletter writers, and that LION is working on two new audits, one for creators and one for Spanish-language publishers. He said the path looks clearer now than it ever has, even as big disruptions loom larger for independent digital publishers, including AI overviews that give people a reason not to click on a story from search and changes to social networks.
Poynter said Krewson noted the audit does not offer answers to the biggest question facing local newsrooms — how to get people to pay for news — but does show that at least a handful of newsrooms are starting to find answers for how to stay in business. It said data for 2025 and 2026 are available to explore now, with the full collection expected in the next few months.
Poynter also reported that LION announced last week it is no longer holding large conferences. Separately, it said the American Journalism Project released a report on how nonprofit local news has moved beyond proof of concept, and that Poynter and the Internet Archive have wrapped the third cohort of a digital archiving project and are seeking newsrooms for next year.