Our Mission
Journalism’s sustainability depends on redesigning around emerging customer and community value, not restoring legacy models. That means watching for disruption, seizing the opportunities it creates, and evolving to meet what audiences need now.
Today, newsrooms operate in an environment of continual societal and marketplace change. The way people find, value, and pay for information has shifted, and it will keep shifting. Restoring the models that worked before isn’t a strategy; adapting to what audiences and communities value now is.
That means continuously watching for disruptions in the value chain, assessing the new opportunities they create, and evolving business-side products and practices to meet market needs. It’s a mindset as much as a method, and it’s one that organizations in every industry, from entertainment to public libraries, have had to learn.
The Business Success Initiative brings those lessons to journalism, with a framework and tools built for continuous adaptation rather than a one-time fix.
About the Initiative
Phase I – The Framework and Case Studies
Completed
We studied how organizations inside and outside journalism responded to structural disruption, successfully or not. From that research, we built the Business Success Framework: a cyclical strategic response to disruption that works as both a diagnostic tool and a model for adaptation, resilience, and sustainable value creation. It isn’t one-and-done; it’s designed to be applied continuously.
Explore Purchasable Case Studies
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$15.00
Public Libraries
When digital technology made information instant and everywhere, libraries lost their role as gatekeepers of access. The ones that thrived stopped competing on access and rebuilt around what’s harder to replicate: trust, connection, and community.
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$15.00
Peloton
Gyms sold a bundle of equipment, classes, and amenities, but most members used only one piece of it. That gap between what was sold and what was used opened the door for a new kind of fitness business.
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$15.00
Netflix
Netflix wasn’t disrupted; it did the disrupting, and then did it to itself, again and again. This case study asks how an organization turns reinventing its own working model into a lasting discipline.
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$15.00
Tower Records
In 1999, the music industry hit its highest-ever revenue, and Napster launched. Tower Records, the world’s most influential music retailer, was at its peak just as the ground began to shift beneath it.
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$15.00
Salt Lake Tribune
For years, The Salt Lake Tribune followed the familiar path of print decline: cuts, shrinking revenue, and a weakening voice. Then it did something different, reorganizing around a new theory of its own value.
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$15.00
Houston Landing
Houston Landing launched in 2023 with more than $20 million and a clear mission: give Houston a trusted local news source. Two years later, it closed. A lesson in trying to do too much, too fast.
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$72.00
Items bought separately: $90.00Complete Case Study Bundle
All Business Success Framework case studies in one collection, from Netflix and Tower Records to the Salt Lake Tribune, each mapped stage by stage to the framework with lessons for local journalism.
Phase II – Putting the Framework Into Action
In Progress
We’re building the tools and programs that help news providers apply the framework in their own organizations.
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Market Analysis Tool
A scalable set of rigorous metrics and market analytics to assess customer needs and market opportunity.
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Business Model Templates
Standard templates mapped to the pathways most likely to help news providers execute their job to be done, connected back to our tools.
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Strategic Coaching
A coaching program for local news providers that runs alongside the framework and analytics, because a mindset takes practice to instill.
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Coursework
Business skills and market evaluation for undergraduate, graduate, and executive learners and journalism support organizations.
Get Involved
Success Requires Collaboration
Tell us how you’d like to take part in Phase II. We’d love to hear from newsrooms, coaches, educators, and funders.
01.
Become a Pilot News Provider
Apply the framework and new tools in your newsroom and help shape what comes next.
02.
Coach With Us
Guide news providers as they put the framework into practice.
03.
Develop or Offer Curricula
Bring business skills and market evaluation into your classroom or program.
04.
Support the Project
Help fund the tools and programs that make Phase II possible.
05.
Follow Our Progress
Get updates as new tools, case studies, and research are released.
Ready to Build a Newsroom That Lasts?
Start with a learning path shaped around your organization, or talk with a coach about where your newsroom is in the cycle today.