Why Journalism should be like the catering business

I was inside Di Bruno Bros., Philadelphia’s beloved, 70-year-old artisan cheese shop and gourmet delicatessen, when something very apparent sunk in for me.

They’ll sell me a block of Manchego sheep’s milk cheese for $5, or bratwurst or beef from the region for a few dollars a pound. It’s profitable and prominent.

But I’d bet Di Bruno Bros. makes a lot more money per minute of staff effort on its catering business than any retail experience it could create. Rather than having one person buying one block of cheese, any successful retail operation wants to use its economies of scale to up production and get more revenue for its effort by servicing tens or hundreds of people at the same time.

If you have a news site, then what is the back-end service that is really going to make the money needed to fund journalism?

That is a long-held foundation of retail service that journalism should take a lesson from. (And it’s just one more lesson we should be learning from other low-yield businesses).

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What the Knight News Challenge could learn from ABC’s ‘Shark Tank’

The Knight News Challenge is once again alive.

The deadline for applications in the fifth annual media innovation pitch series from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is, as deadlines tend to do, rapidly approaching: Dec. 1.

It was only back in June that the recipients of the 2010 Knight News Challenge grants were announced, for which you can see commentary from the Nieman Journalism Lab here.

In other news, ABC this fall announced that outspoken billionaire and Dallas Mavericks Owner Mark Cuban and comedian Jeff Foxworthy would be joining a handful of venture capitalists on the second season of made-for-TV, speed investment pitch reality show “Shark Tank.”

Despite being influenced by a popular Japanese program format and easily being among the most interesting reality TV shows I’ve ever seen, “Shark Tank” wasn’t the ratings success ABC may have wanted.

Popular or not, from when the show first debuted and even more so this year, I think there is plenty the Knight News Challenge should take from “Shark Tank.”

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Grid magazine: Dansko, a responsible shoe company

grid-august

Earlier this summer, I did some reporting for sustainability publication Grid magazine about Dansko, a suburban-Philadelphia durable footwear company that specializes in clogs. Unfortunately I couldn’t finish the story for some personal reasons.

Still, you should see the final product by Natalie Hope McDonald on Page 10 here, and check out the whole mag, which is an interesting niche news startup in Philadelphia.

Below read some of the content that I didn’t get the chance to use.

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Grid magazine: Philadelphia factories are repurposed sustainably

Courtesy of Grid magazine
Courtesy of Grid magazine

The sustainable renovation of the Globe Dye Works, a former manufacturing complex in the Frankford neighborhood of Northeast Philadelphia, is the focus of a story I have in Grid magazine this month.

For five generations and 140 years, the Globe Dye Works dyed and wound yarn, and employed hundreds at its peak. In 2005, unable to continue fighting the globalization and outsourcing that moved other businesses, Globe closed, ending another vestige of Philadelphia’s past as the Workshop of the World. Its 11 buildings and 165,000 square feet, located off Torresdale Avenue in the Frankford area of Northeast Philadelphia, were shuttered and left vacant. Read more here [PDF].

Check out the PDF and read the story on Page 18.

I also did a small feature on Globe Dye Works for NEast Philly. Grid is a fairly new magazine focused on Philadelphia sustainability and environmentalism, and it’s quickly growing attention for good reporting and sharp design. I’m proud to be a part.

Below see what didn’t make it into print.

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