Reuters-The China Project media company shuts due to funding problem
November 7, 2023 2 min 373 words
The China Project"的关闭是一项令人遗憾的消息。这家独立资助的英语媒体以深度报道中国为特色，为西方受众提供了宝贵的视角。然而，由于资金短缺，它不得不终止运营，这反映出全球媒体行业的挑战。正如编辑-in-chief Jeremy Goldkorn 所言，媒体业务一直都充满风险。随着中国与美国关系恶化，这家公司受到了来自两国的批评，不断增加的法律成本和困难吸引投资者、广告商和赞助商。这个情况表明，在当今的政治和经济环境下，独立媒体在扮演监督角色时面临重大挑战。虽然订阅模式在全球媒体行业中取得了不同程度的成功，但"The China Project"的案例显示，即使提供高质量的新闻内容，也可能因资金问题而难以维持。这个关闭提醒我们，支持独立媒体和新闻报道的可持续模式至关重要，以确保多样化和深入的新闻覆盖，特别是涉及复杂国际关系的报道。
One of the few independently funded English-language publications to cover China in depth for Western audiences, "The China Project", is to close because of a lack of funding, its editor-in-chief, Jeremy Goldkorn, wrote in a post.
The China Project, which began as a newsletter in 2016 and was formerly known as SupChina, expanded to become a "news and business intelligence company focused on helping a global audience understand China", it says on its website.
Its products included the popular China news and society-themed Sinica podcast, articles on a wide range of China-themed topics on its website, a business intelligence data product "ChinaEDGE" and organising conferences.
Staff numbers increased too. But as with a number of online-based media companies in recent years, such as Buzzfeed News, financing became a problem.
"The media business is precarious," Goldkorn wrote in a statement on the website.
"This week, we learned that a source of funding that we had been counting on was no longer going to come through, and we have had to make the difficult decision to close down."
The company sought to produce "balanced" reporting on China and U.S.-China-themed topics. But this attracted criticism as relations between the two powers sank to new depths.
"We have been accused many times in both countries of working for nefarious purposes for the government of the other," Goldkorn said.
"Defending ourselves has incurred enormous legal costs, and, far worse, made it increasingly difficult for us to attract investors, advertisers, and sponsors. While our subscription offerings have been growing strongly and steadily, we are not yet in a position to rely on these revenues to sustain our operations."
Media companies globally have had mixed success with subscription models.
The China Project's subscription package offered "the internet's best birds-eye view of China" for $120 a year, which was still on offer to site visitors on Tuesday, according to a Reuters check.
"We do not have a business model problem," company CEO Bob Guterma told Reuters via email.
"We made big plans and pursued them boldly with the full backing of our investors. But in the past six months, investor interest has dropped off precipitously due to economic and geopolitical headwinds. We became unable to sustain what we had grown into."