Local News Network receives $10K from City for business consulting

When Local News Network accepted a $10,000-dollar payment from the City of Durango for consulting its grant recipients, it may have compromised its ability to objectively report on the recipients and the city grant.

This is not promotional or partner support. Logo used for identification, satire and fair use only; no endorsement implied.

Specifically, the Local News Network was hired by the City of Durango as a consultant to develop and implement a Creative Business Consulting Program for recipients of the Lodgers’ Tax: Arts and Culture grants.

Historically, the City of Durango Lodgers’ Tax Arts and Culture program was created in 2021 after voters approved an increase in Lodgers’ Tax from 2% to 5.25%, with a portion of the increase dedicated to arts and culture funding.

Generally, the program provides financial support to individuals, non-profit organizations, businesses, and arts and culture organizations that contribute to the vitality of the community.

Later, the Creative Business Consulting Program was created with money from the same tax. The consulting program was intended to provide coaching of grantees to responsibly manage their grant funds, leverage financial support to grow or strengthen their creative endeavors, and to succeed as both creators and emerging business owners, according to the Request for Proposal.

Business consulting is an abnormal revenue source for news media outlets

Journalism industry researchers and professional ethics organizations can confirm that this is not a normal form of revenue for a news media outlet, based on decades of documented revenue data and ethical standards.

• Typical revenue for news media outlets (newspapers, digital news sites, local TV/radio, etc.) comes overwhelmingly from: Advertising (print, digital, sponsored content)
• Circulation/subscriptions (print and digital reader payments, memberships)
• Related streams like events, newsletters, or ancillary services (e.g., some papers offer digital marketing help to local businesses as an ad-extension)

Pew Research Center’s annual Newspapers Fact Sheet and related reports (tracking U.S. industry data through 2022–2023 and beyond) break down revenues this way, with advertising historically dominant (though declining) and circulation rising in importance. No standard category includes “business consulting paid by a municipality” or government contracts for advising grant recipients. Older Pew analyses of “other earned revenue” mention things like newspapers acting as digital marketing consultants to local businesses (to support ad sales), but not government-funded consulting to arts/culture grantees. Global surveys (e.g., World Press Trends) and reports from groups like the News/Media Alliance show the same pattern: core news revenue + reader support + commercial extensions. Government payments for non-journalistic services like grant consulting do not appear as normal.

Local news accepting funding from municipalities implicates independence

This is not promotional or partner support. Logo used for identification, satire and fair use only; no endorsement implied.

In the specific setup—a news outlet paid by a city to provide business consulting to recipients of Lodger’s Tax Arts & Culture grants (common in places like Durango, CO; Taos or Santa Fe, NM, where hotel taxes fund tourism/arts promotion)—this creates a direct financial tie to the same local government whose spending, grants, and grantees the outlet should independently cover as a watchdog. That is not a standard business practice for credible news organizations. The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) Code of Ethics (widely adopted as the industry benchmark) states under “Act Independently”:

• “Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.”
• “Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment, and avoid political and other outside activities that may compromise integrity or impartiality, or may damage credibility.”
• “Deny favored treatment to advertisers, donors or any other special interests…”

Similar language appears in codes from major outlets (e.g., The Washington Post explicitly bars payments/honoraria from governments or government-funded groups; The New York Times and others stress the same). Accepting municipal funding for the consultation of publicly-funded grant recipients directly implicates the independence of the same municipal-funded outlets.

Sources that track journalistic conflicts of interest

Here’s a non-exhaustive list of organizations that track journalistic conflicts of interest:

• Pew Research Center’s Journalism Project — Their fact sheets, revenue analyses, and state-of-the-news-industry reports are the gold-standard reference; they have never listed municipal consulting as a normal stream.
• Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) — Contact their ethics committee or hotline; they routinely advise on conflicts involving government payments.
• Poynter Institute — Journalism training/ethics leaders who frequently address financial independence issues.
  News/Media Alliance or Local Media Association — Trade groups that track and advise on legitimate revenue diversification for newsrooms.
• Academic media economists (e.g., at Columbia Journalism Review, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, or university journalism programs) — They study sustainable models and flag non-standard government ties as red flags for credibility.

Small or nonprofit digital outlets sometimes pursue side consulting (e.g., training or communications work for NGOs), but even then it is segregated from the newsroom precisely to protect editorial independence—and it is rarely (if ever) direct municipal payment for advising the municipality’s own grant recipients.

Bottom line: This is not normal revenue for a news media outlet.

Adam Howell is a writer who believes in free press and the importance of the constitution. He can be reached by clicking on this link to the contact page.

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