Jay Rosen ties together some of the trends happening right now in digital journalism, such as the launch of deep dive digital news sites. These sites are heading 180 degrees in the opposite direction of the generalist bundles like the newspaper and news channels.

When people entirely new to it ask me what’s the best way to get going in journalism — if you are starting as an outsider, with no credentials or experience — I always give the same advice, and I know other people give this advice too. It’s obvious enough. Start a niche news service on a subject some people care a lot about.

Niches can definitely be a winning strategy. In many ways, niche sites focused on revenue rich verticals have been working for much of the past decade – tech, sports, food, fashion. I think there are opportunities for traditional news organisations to build these types of verticals into a revenue stream rich enough to create a new form of support for public service journalism. This is part of my current strategy, looking for these verticals.

However, I want to add a caveat to Jay’s post, or amplify a caveat in his post. He writes:

These are a few of the simple virtues and basic lessons that a good niche blogger acquires by building a service from scratch. You don’t need permission to do it. Initial investment: less than $1000 for design, hosting. It’s a free country, a free press. And at first, you will probably be doing it for free.

I used to think that the radically lower cost of digital media would help traditional news organisations and indeed individual journalists outrun disruption. I was wrong. Cutting costs was part of the disruption not a strategy to survive it. The lower costs mean that there are lower barriers to entry to new competitors. To create a sustainable business in digital media, you don’t simply need to be cheap. You don’t simply need to grow your audience quickly. You also need to know from day one what your revenue strategy will be. If you don’t want to be doing your journalism for free forever, you need both an editorial plan and a business plan.