Clare Cook

Her policy impact is felt in UK government and international development. Her recent research into hyperlocal and politically pressured media revenue models has been used as evidence by the Department of Culture Media & Sport and the Department for International Development. She inputs evidence to policy makers and media development programmes, and speaks internationally. She is co-author of the Media Viability Manifesto a sea-change commitment to find an economic future for journalism globally. She also editor of the landmark publication Where’s the Money? New forms of funding, financing and investment for public interest media.

She has helped take two products to market: Ping!News from the Value My News project, which unlocks new revenue streams for hyperlocal journalism sites in the UK, funded by Google DNI and Future News Fund. This platform prototype develops new supply chain economies for hyperlocal and independent media in the UK, creating a suite of tools for white labelling to unlock new revenue streams through the sharing economy and by upselling content through the UK media system. And TED, an artificial intelligence news production efficiency tool for local media in the UK. She is Principle Investigator on several research projects, awarded funding from Nesta, Nemode, RCUK, and Google Digital News Initiative. . She often assesses applications for international journalism grant programmes.

Clare is published widely in Journal of Media Business Studies, International Communication Gazette and Nordicom Review. She is co-author of two books: Social Media for Journalists Principles and Practice (Sage) and Chasing Sustainability on the Net (COMET). She is co-author of several key reports such as Sustainable Business Models on the Net (COMET), Hyperlocal Revenues in the UK and Europe (Nesta) and Unlocking Journalism Resilience: Adapting a Digital Business Model to Promote Press Freedom (Wan-Ifra), and extensive publications at mediasupport.org. She is lead author on the Public Interest News Foundation Index. Her work is noted for their high level of instrumental impact with media practitioners. Her focus is primarily on putting knowledge into practice.

Clare accepts PhD applicants in the areas of journalism business models, media viability, innovation, local media, news deserts, media development, media in politically pressured environments, exiled and hybrid ways of working. Her own thesis explored revenue models in the path sustainability of web-indigenous journalism using a pragmatist approach.

Clare is an award-winning journalist who forged her career in journalism for ten years across regional and periodicals. She is passionate about decentralised local media and speaks internationally relating to hyperlocal and independent community media resilience. She advises many media on their revenue diversification strategies. She is an active business viability mentor at International Media Support, leading programmes such as Local Media for Democracy and Pluralism Media for Democracy, and developing new tools such as the Impact Framework for Media Projects and user needs tools. As business mentor for the Engaged Journalism Accelerator, she has developed a new toolkit using hexagonal heat mapping to correlate reader relationships with reader revenue models.

Clare works with many exiled and hybrid media. In 2014, she designed and delivered an action research workshop on Collaborative Revenue Capture bringing exiled media practitioners from Iran. Colombia, Belarus, Syria and more together to co-create new knowledge with funders to understand alternative revenue models for media in politically pressured environments. In 2016, she developed CAST, a proximity prototype for distribution networks in remote Armenian villages. Using WiFi mesh capable of sustaining hyperlocal content discovery and interactions from electronic devices it allows decentralized access to news and resources. The pilot fused new knowledge on digital divide, digital literacy, community engagement and decentralized information architecture. Most recently she has co-designed a five phase framework for better supporting media in exile.