When the pandemic forced conferences to go virtual, the question was whether people would come back in person post-Covid.
For a while, they did. For a couple years after the pandemic, people were excited to be in person together again. U.S. journalism organizations saw their revenue climb, as sponsors and funders spent generously.
At the end of 2026, though, the situation is less rosy. Combine surging jet fuel prices, inflation, media companies cutting costs, and declining sponsor and funder dollars, and the future appears grim not just for journalism conferences but, in some cases, for the organizations behind them.
Revenue is the total revenue line on each organization’s IRS Form 990. The 990s are from ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer. ONA’s 990 for 2025 was not available as of November 12, 2026.
The Online News Association said on Tuesday that it is “pausing” its 26-year-old conference and laying off its five staffers.
“Before the pandemic, the annual conference was ONA’s biggest source of revenue, and together with grants, it sustained the organization. This is no longer true,” Niketa Patel wrote. “The costs of large convenings have climbed sharply while professional development and sponsorship budgets have shrunk.”
LION Publishers said in September that it’s getting out of the large conference business for now. “Philanthropy is famously fickle, and funding priorities have shifted, making this kind of conference a very tough lift,” executive director Chris Krewson added.
LION barely broke even on the conferences it held in 2025 and 2026, Krewson told me. The organization may still hold smaller events next year, it’s not cutting staff or programming, and it’s expanding its Audit program. But it “won’t be taking on the responsibility for an independent event at a hotel with a food and beverage minimum and hotel room block for 400-plus people.”
“Every dollar I spend on rubber chicken dinners and microphones/WiFi for three days is money I can’t spend on programs that make publishers’ businesses stronger,” Krewson said.
OpenNews said in October that it’s switching into “emergency mode”1 and cutting back on “work that distills journalism craft: no more community calls or Source articles for at least the rest of 2026 and maybe longer.”
The future of OpenNews’s annual conference, SRCCON, is uncertain. “We usually make our decision about SRCCON at about this time every year, but this year is different as we consider the news from both LION and ONA and the funding pressures that we know all too well,” Jessica Morrison, co–executive director of OpenNews told me in an email. “We are opening a community conversation today — emails going out very soon — to gather input about SRCCON, our other programs, and where we go next with OpenNews.”
The three-year-old Organization for Accessible Journalism said Thursday that it is shutting down. “Financial support never reached a level that allowed us to build beyond an all volunteer effort — including my full-time effort,” founder Stacy Kess wrote.
Journalism conferences in the United States are certainly not gone.
IRE and NICAR will hold their annual data journalism conference in Denver in March.
The Institute for Nonprofit News is “talking about what INN Days will look like in 2027” and will know more by early next year.
And the International Symposium on Journalism is on for 2027 — its 28th year, founder (and Nieman Foundation board member) Rosental Alves told me.
But things have gotten harder, he said. “It’s not only the difficulty of finding sponsors, but also the rising costs of venues, hotels, airfares, etc., compounded by shrinking travel budgets in newsrooms and even the problems international attendees face in coming to the U.S.,” he told me in an email. ISOJ cut costs, in part by moving to a different venue, and it benefits from being relatively small.
“It’s very sad that foundations and corporations that funded journalism conferences in the past have pulled back their support,” Alves added. “The need for these gatherings is as great as ever.”
