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Amid all the bad news about business models for high-quality journalism, eldiario.es ("The Daily") in Spain shows that good journalism can be good business. Escolar: "Journalism is a public service that has to be profitable" Its founder and CEO, Ignacio Escolar , just announced that the publication finished 2015 with revenues of US$ 2.6 million, up 33% on the year, and a profit after taxes of US$ 235,000. Although the digital publication is free, its 14,500 "partners" ( socios ) pay at least US$ 66 a year to get access to the news a few hours ahead of everyone else as well as ad-free pages, discounts, and invitations to events. Those partners brought in about a third of eldiario.es's revenues , "And they allow us to remain independent," Escolar said in his announcement. Although advertising brings in more than the partner revenue, no single advertiser comes close to bringing in what the partners do, so none has enough leverage to influence ...

Emilio Garcia-Ruiz speaks to the press in Huesca. Photo by EFE HUESCA, Spain -- Yes, it�s good to have a billionaire owner with patience, but it�s even better to have a billionaire owner with a vision. And the vision of Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos is that a news organization has to make its work available free, everywhere. Bezos is urging the publication's journalists to adopt the principles of retail sales that he has learned over the years in running Amazon , America's largest online retailer of practically everything. And the man who is putting that vision into practice is Emilio Garcia-Ruiz , the Post's managing editor for digital. Versi�n en espa�ol A fundamental concept in retail strategy is the sales funnel, Garcia-Ruiz said in his keynote address March 10 at the Digital Journalism Conference in Huesca, Spain. The idea is to get as many people as possible to sample your product (in journalism, it's through sharing in social networks ), get them to pay for...

Last week the Department of Communication at the University of Navarra invited 16 alumni with interesting career paths to share their stories with the students. I attended four of the sessions and heard a similar comment from each of the presenters: I never imagined that I would be doing the things I am doing now in my professional career. A journalism major was hired in public relations by a German automaker, partly because he learned German during a year of study abroad. Another journalism major's assignment to cover sporting events, in which he had little expertise, eventually led to assignments covering culture and entertainment, which he loves. Many unimaginable opportunities presented themselves at unexpected moments from unlikely sources. Professional life for them had been an adventure. I�aki Gabilondo, Foto de biografiasyvidas.com Versi�n en espa�ol The advice these alumni gave also ran along similar lines: You need to be flexible, learn at every stage of your career, an...