SLC Tribune a nonprofit? Nice, or "nice," but a game-changer? Not by itself

Media analyst pundits like Jay Rosen and many others are raving about the Salt Lake City Tribune getting IRS approval — and quickly — to reconstitute itself as a 501(c)3 nonprofit.

If this is part of a broader package of change issues on the business side, it might mean something. As of right now? No.

Click the link above. You'll likely see a Javascript screen tut-tutting you to turn off whatever ad-blocking program you run.

You WON'T see a hard or even semi-hard paywall. You'll only see a note with something to the effect that only subscribers can read while still running ad-blocking extensions.

This is the latest move by many newspapers and other news websites to avoid an actual paywall of any substance.

We in the business know that digital dimes of ad revenue continue to lose value, especially as they're undercut by mobile nickels.

If you're not going to address that revenue loss in other ways (beyond seeking donations to you as a nonprofit), you're still not facing the revenue issue head on.

So, nice at best to be a nonprofit, and that's only with other steps. If this is the Trib's main move, then "nice" is more like it.

As for those nonprofit partnerships? ProPublica and the Texas Tribune have had some success with them. The Trib, though, has had its reporting questioned at times in the past, over whether any oil-industry partnerships had bad influence, among other things, and I have been a past questioner.

Plus, neither of them is a legacy newspaper still focusing on print operations. Also, neither is in a two newspaper town — the Trib has the larger weekday circ but Deseret News is larger on Sunday. And, the Deseret News, though itself constituted as a for-profit, is of course owned by a massive nonprofit — the Mormons.

Where it's already been done, as a couple of years ago with the two Philly papers, per AP reporting this spring on the Trib's plans? It's helped. But it is not a lifesaver. (Philly had another buyout offer round this spring as well.) And eventually, as more papers consider this, existing journalism foundations, like Knight, which gave the Philly papers a bunch of money, will have less and less to give.