Franchisee/Licensees

From Banyan Project

The Banyan Project is wholly devoted to being relevant, respectful and trustworthy to the Banyan Public. Even though its vision is to provide its public a comprehensive news report that meets this value proposition, Banyan has no interest in being a monolithic, tightly controlling journalistic enterprise. Given the fact that the Banyan Public is everywhere, spread through all 50 states, this would probably be impossible even it were desirable.

So Banyan's plan -- consistent with the character of the Web, and consonant with the Banyan metaphor -- is to provide a powerful structure of turnkey services that remove all obstacles for groups of journalists who want to come together as franchisee/licensees to cover issues and communities. The work of these widely distributed entities would blend together in Banyan's 2.0 publishing/civic networking software to deliver the promised comprehensive report. Without tight central control, there is every reason to expect significant innovation that may lead to journalistic approaches that have yet to be imagined.

At this stage legal wisdom is needed to determine whether franchise agreements or licenses will provide the best way to govern relationships between Banyan and the many journalistic entities that will band together in its structure. To keep things simple at this stage, this wiki page will use the terms "franchise" and "franchisee."

When measured by geography the Banyan Public's concerns span the hyperlocal, regional, national and global. Banyan envisions franchising community, metro-scale and state-capital coverage groups, as well as investigative reporting organizations and groups that cover a wide range of personal issues that include employment, health care, personal finance and much more. Washington coverage and national and foreign correspondence are another matter and if no franchise model arises they may need to be furnished by the central Banyan "trunk."

The franchises would receive valuable services from Banyan -- its sophisticated 2.0 publishing/civic networking software, carefully controlled national ad sales, sharing of revenue from co-op payments and advertising in relation to attention paid to pages each franchise creates, a back office that handles relations with co-op members and does financial work for the franchisees, promotion, etc. This way all the journalists have to provide is the journalism -- but the journalism must serve the Banyan public and fulfill its Banyan standards.

To ensure this, Banyan foresees that:

1) Its agreements with franchisees will lay out a detailed set of parameters that will make sure that their journalism meets the standards.

2) The publishing software will include built-in step-by-step reminders to help franchise journalists comply.

3) The civic networking software will invite readers to flag content they think diverges from the value proposition; repeat offenses may be grounds for franchise revocation.

4) The central Banyan office will provide training and ongoing support for franchisees.

One of the revenue streams Banyan envisions is fees that cover each franchise's share of the overhead, as determined by use.