As newsrooms shrink, newspapers are looking to a new crop of outside reporting organizations for specialized content. These new outlets might have their own agenda and bias, reports Richard Perez-Pena in The New York Times.
He raises issues about possible conflicts with The Fiscal Times, a new provider of financial reporting that appears on the pages of The Washington Post .
He writes that some experts have raised questions about ProPublica and Politico.
Politico has created a very successful syndication business which provides content, including text and video, to many newspapers.
The company became profitable last year, according to co-founder and editor and John Harris in this interview with Beet.TV from last year. Harris explains his syndication strategy in this video.
Here at Beet.TV, we expect that the demand for niche, quality content by newspapers and other news organizations will increase – and editors will need to carefully vet these new content sources.
As Perez-Pena said, the new demand for vertical, specialized content will rise. This might bubble up on newspaper pages or it will be delivered directly by content creators playing on the level playing field of the Web.
Andy Plesser, Executive Producer
