Promoting Transparency as a Strategy for Affirmation in the News Market: An Analysis of Entrepreneurial Journalism Projects

Promoting transparency is seen as one of the key mechanisms for generating trust in the work of journalists and thereby strengthening democracies. The principle is that making information about media ownership, funding, and editorial decision-making criteria public enhances understanding of the less visible aspects of journalistic production, thus increasing credibility by identifying potential conflicts of interest. In recent years, technological development, particularly the internet’s growing capabilities, coupled with the crisis in journalism’s business models, which is jeopardising traditional funding models, has led to the emergence of entrepreneurial journalistic projects that claim to be alternative and independent. These projects seek to distinguish themselves from mainstream journalism through their structure, funding and ownership models, and they find a strategy for promoting transparency that sets them apart from traditional media. This article aims to identify and analyse the transparency promotion practices of these journalistic projects, relating them to a strategy of affirmation in the news market.