Profit or Nonprofit? A Debate over Journalism’s Future

The Kicker · Feb 19, 2026 · 1h 13m

While the newspaper industry continues to contract, nonprofit news outlets have proliferated over the past decade. But dismissing profitable models for journalism is premature. How can journalism survive? Perhaps the question would once have sounded unduly panicked, but it has only grown more pressing over the past twenty years. Between 2004 and 2019, newspapers lost an astonishing 77 percent of their jobs—more than any other industry on record, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In early February, the industry suffered another historic blow, as the Washington Post announced it was…