"Creative Funding for Creative Media" conference brings together leaders in innovative media funding

On November 6 and 7, the Future Media Lab. hosted the first European conference on innovative media funding in Ghent, Belgium. The event, which was part of the annual iMinds conference “Creative Media Days”, brought together leading experts in creative media funding approaches with journalists and publishing representatives. The discussions prompted a call for new forms of cooperation between donor organizations and media companies and a rethink of the way journalism is financed and published. There was also recognition of the need for journalists and publishers to effectively interact with their “communities” of readers.

“Today’s debate impressed me,” said EMMA’s Honorary Vice-President, Kevin Hand (Chairman of PPA, UK), “as it showed that creative media will face a range of innovative funding possibilities, such as crowdfunding. I can clearly see the potential impact of this new trend on innovation, creativity and quality – also in magazine media.” Max von Abendroth, EMMA’s executive director and initiator of the Future Media Lab. concluded, “The debate about creative funding for creative media is crucial for the understanding of how the future media landscape in Europe will look in terms of content, technology innovation and business development.”

The two-day conference consisted of panel discussions, keynote speeches, and workshop sessions that enabled participants to actively engage with one another in order to share experiences with crowdfunding and debate the future of media financing. The speakers included Michael Maness of the Knight Foundation (USA), Paul Lewis, a journalist for the Guardian (UK), Danae Ringelmann, the co-founder and chief operating officer of Indiegogo.com (USA), Bart Becks of SonicAngel (Belgium) and Wouter Bax editor-in-chief of NU.nl run by Sanoma Media (Netherlands).

As journalism enters the online realm, the ability for journalists and media organizations alike to adapt to new methods of producing, funding and presenting content is crucial. As Maness pointed out, in the US, 5 billion US$ have been taken out of newsrooms over the last years, increasing the stress on publishers to produce journalistic content.

Also, the traditional relationship between the media and their consumers is withering, as communities of potential funders replace the conventional media audience. This communal aspect, argued Bobbie Johnson in his keynote speech Tuesday, is the key for creative funding success.

Johnson, who is the co-founder of MATTER, a digital platform for investigative journalism about technology and science and one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns (over $140,000 raised), stressed the need for journalists to engage a community of supporters. “People don’t back business plans,” he told the participants. “People back ideas they can connect to.”

While crowdfunding has the possibility of easing the stress on traditional media funders, there are also challenges for using this method for the production of journalistic content – particularly breaking news. But it also has the ability to keep investigative journalism – which, due to its unsustainable nature, has been the victim of recent newsroom cuts – alive.

The conference, titled “Creative Funding for Creative Media”, was the first time the topic of crowdfunding and creative media approaches was addressed at the European level. Representatives from 12 different countries were present at the conference, bringing a unique international perspective to the problem of media funding. It was the second event hosted by the Future Media Lab., a think-tank initiative for knowledge-sharing, policy advice and business information.

A detailed report will follow.

To see photos of the event, click here.

For more information about the Future Media Lab., please contact:

Max von Abendroth

Max.abendroth@magazinemedia.eu
+32 2 536 06 04

You can also find the Future Media Lab. on Twitter: @fml_eu The Future Media Lab. think tank initiative is hosted by the European Magazine Media Association (EMMA), the unique and complete representation of Europe’s magazine media. EMMA represents 15.000 publishing houses, publishing 50.000 magazine titles across Europe in print and digital. For more information about EMMA, visit the website or follow us on Twitter @magazinemedia