Newspaper/television group owner E.W. Scripps company has invested $1.5 million in LA-based Ebyline, which publicly launched in September 2010 as a content marketplace for news publishers and professional freelance journalists.
“Ebyline gives news publishers a way to streamline and simplify the distribution of content, allowing them to reinvest in their core business – quality content,” said Mark Contreras, senior vice president of newspapers for Scripps. “Today’s news business needs solutions like Ebyline that offer both publishers and individuals new opportunities to manage and monetize quality content.”
Scripps owns and operates 10 television stations, but more importantly for this investment has daily and community newspapers in 14 markets. It also operates Scripps Howard News Service, one of the nation’s largest news services.
“Scripps’ investment is an endorsement of Ebyline as a way to help news publishers and freelancers connect with each other in efficient and innovative ways. With the support and partnership of Scripps, we’re looking forward to bringing new ideas, tools and growth opportunities to the journalism space,” said Bill Momary, Ebyline CEO and co-founder.
Ebyline’s marketplace and underlying technology enable those who produce original news content and those who publish it to do business with each other, buying and selling news on an á la carte basis using a secure online platform that manages many administrative tasks. The company says that frees up time and budgets, permitting both sides to dedicate more resources to quality journalism.
For qualified freelance journalists, Ebyline’s online platform lets writers “self-syndicate,” giving them the ability to pitch and sell finished work to news organizations and negotiate fees with publishers.
For news publishers, the platform introduces new incremental revenue opportunities and significant cost savings, enabling news publishers to assign and to buy stories á la carte from freelance writers, and to buy and sell their news content directly with publishers.
