Joseph Lichterman of the Nieman Lab writes about Technically Media, which runs a group of tech news sites from Washington to New York.
Lichterman writes, “Even as it’s grown its business, Technically has kept journalism at the heart of its operations. It maintains separations between the business and editorial ends of the company, but Technically sees the journalism as the way to continue to grow and sustain the audience it needs to make money.
“‘It feels cheesy. I’ve heard so many people say community is important, but it drives everything that we do,’ said Technically associate editor Juliana Reyes, who was the company’s first employee. ‘It’s great because they read our stuff. They come up to me and events and say they read that story, or they read about an event, or a company that’s hiring and they apply. Things like that when you see the actual effects of your reporting.’
“The company wants to continue to find ways to better integrate its journalism with its revenue-generating products. That’s the thinking behind products like the jobs platform: People are already using Technically’s stories on companies that are expanding to apply for jobs, so why not try to find a way to formalize it?
“The company wants to get to a point where ‘the business we are cannot be done without the beat reporters we have,’ Wink said. ‘As opposed to, ‘Oh gosh, I think journalism is neat and we’re going to do it even though it causes us business problems.’ I want the mission to be so deeply ingrained that you could not cut it out.'”
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