Are you prepared to pay a subscription for your news? According to Rupert Murdoch of News Corporation many subscribers to the on-line Wall Street Journal already are.
The bloggers are going bonkers with this story and the comments are flowing in.
http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/903901/Rupert-Murdoch-charge-online-content/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/may/07/rupert-murdoch-internet
General consensus is that he's completely barking to even make the audacious suggestion. I can't see it working myself. There are too many places you can get your news today. In the past, some websites required you to register (The Guardian, for example) and even that was a pain. They've since dropped that idea. There is simply too much competition for sources of news and news groups have to face up to the fact that sales of newspapers are dropping and they have to build a website that complements the hard copy, then they have to raise cash in other ways.
Desktop RSS feed anyone?
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Poynter and other journalism websites have been discussing this in depth as well. Nobody needs to pay for online newspapers because there are so many free sites plus so many other ways to get news. It's interesting that advertisers are not supporting online news the way they support paper products. Maybe it's just that they, too, now have so many other options. While high-tech is a very good thing, it has definitely fractured every aspect of our lives, which makes it harder and more expensive to target and reach large groups of people with a coherent message.
ReplyDeleteReaching people in large numbers is a theme I've referred to a few times in ayrshirenotes, particularly as we face a general election inthe UK within the next 12 months.
ReplyDeleteOne blogger gives an excellent breakdown of how Barack Obama's campaign did it (see the posting on on-line canvassing) and the plethora of tools they had to use to do so.
Public relations just got harder, with even more plates to spin.
The demise in scarcity of publishing outlets (which Clay Shirky maintains is the biggest aid to social media)has just formed what he describes as a whole new ecosystem.
I wouldn't be prepared to pay for online newspapers - and I doubt many other would either - when there are currently so many publications of a high standard available for free.
ReplyDeleteThere's an alternative to paying for an online subscription -- community funded newspapers like Spot.us (http://spot.us/)-- so the new question is, how much would you be willing to pay for a journalist to keep writing?
ReplyDeleteI would be prepared to pay for news, if I get to choose what I want to read and avoid those annoying ads that always come on when you're in the middle of what you want, in the name of trying to recoup costs of bringing the information to me. I believe that people should pay for a service and there is nothing like free news. What they tout as free is news which has been slanted by paying interest groups and big advertising groups that I am likely to take what they say with a pinch of salt. Most media outlets perform a delicate balancing act between advertising revenues and editorial content and they sure don't get it right, all the time. That's why I would prefer to buy what I want when I want and how I want it.
ReplyDeleteThe Telegraph has just proved the power of a good story. (See 'MP expenses: A triumph of journalism?', by Torin Douglas at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8053264.stm for circulation figures.)Douglas states that, in this instance, old media has converged with new technology in a way that has attracted considerable new readership, both in print and online. My view is that when you can get your news anywhere (it's basically rehashed), why pay for it? A good story well told, however, is well worth the money.
ReplyDeleteDream World: go to www.flatearthnews.net
ReplyDeleteThere's a few viewpoints in here and I can see why people get so heated up about what is 'free' news. After all, we pay for a newspaper (unless it's Metro, then we just pick it up for Guilty Pleasures...) but we appear to want the online version free - a sort of value-added extra.
ReplyDeleteOr, we pass by the newspaper vendor and read the online version.
Dream World is right regarding the advertising slant and relationship between the newspaper owner and the big commercial spenders, or indeed their other commercial interests. That phenomenon is particularly prevalent with the Murdoch empire (how many HarperCollins books or Twentieth Century Fox films are plugged in News Corporation's titles?)and you have to go in with your eyes open.