ABSTRACT
Editorial independence and financial sustainability are complex aims. This case study examines the contexts and strategies that contribute to achieving and maintaining financial sustainability in regional and city-level media organizations in two Russian provinces. Results from interviews with reporters and editors cast doubt on the assumption that provincial newspapers cannot attain editorial independence and cannot sustain themselves without government subsidies. Findings reveal that financial independence—economic capital—appears to lessen the degree of government intrusion in journalists’ communication with their audiences. Although independent newsrooms have larger circulations and more effective marketing strategies than comparable state-subsidized outlets, and although their staffs worked longer hours and earned less than half of what their “state” colleagues made, local social capital and a guiding history of community relationships buoyed them.
