Wait, Sam Stone, your thesis began as “Why print journalism is outmoded and headed for extinction as it becomes progressively less the higher-quality choice.” Then you went into giving examples to support that thesis, examples that appear to be about TELEVISION “news.”
Little bit of a disconnect there.
I’d be a lot more likely to pay the NY Times if they had an even cheaper Internet only option. I frequently read the paper from home on my web browser, but it’s probably not worth $15 a month. I’ll just do without after I hit my limt. I never read it on a smartphone, etc.
Washington Post, Denver Post, please note.
Oh, I am going to have to retract my statement that I’ll pay for the New York Times. A small annual subscription, sure. But $195 a year? No freakin’ way.
No, I was just lumping it all together - old media as a model of intermediaries packing and filtering news for the public, versus the new media which is news generated organically from the crowd, and filtered in real time by trusted aggregators.
I think there’s still room for journalists - it’s just that they’re going to be more independent. Michael Yon is the perfect example. If he was doing what he does for Time or Newsweek, in my opinion he would already have won the Pulitzer as a war correspondent. His work is absolutely stellar.
In the old days, he would have been employed by a major magazine and sent on assignment. Then he would have reported back to the magazine, and his editors would have chosen which material of his to print. And because print journalism is severely limited in column space, his material wouldn’t have anything like the depth he has now.
So what’s his business model? He takes donations from readers. He sells the photographs he takes, or publishes them on his own web site. He’ll probably compile the material into books and sell it to his ready-made audience. Perhaps he’ll get commissions for pieces from some of the large content web sites. But it appears to be a viable model - he’s making enough that he’s been in the field almost continuously since 2001, and he’s well equipped with expensive camera gear.
In addition, as ex-special forces, he has forged relationships with units he has embedded with that he might not get if he were a correspondent for a big magazine. If he were working for a big paper, the soldiers he’s with would have to trust not only him, but they’d have to trust his editors not to slant his material. But an independent journalist has complete control over the presentation of his content.
So there will still be professional journalists. It’s just that in the new world they are directly connected to their audience. Having their own web sites means they can present their stories in as much depth as they think they need to tell it. If they are really good, their work will be elevated in readership and important through the process of linking, liking, and by content aggregators. It’s a form of organic syndication. The cream rises to the top.
I keep checking to see if this is one of the onslaught of zombie threads we’ve been getting lately, but no…
Full disclosure - back in the long-ago 2000s I was a proud employee of the Sulzbergers for a while, and worked peripherally on “Times Select” - pay-to-read access to NYT content. It seemed like a bad idea at the time, for reasons various posters have explained, and also because we expected to fall off Google’s first page for the protected content.
A cursory search shows that NYT backed off from this model in 2007 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/business/media/18times.html so what’s changed ?
At the time the buzz was that the only major title that was really making a viable case for paid content was WSJ, other titles were fudging their models by not considering any cost for content, and assuming all website readership and revenue was incremental.
In the past, this has never been true unless the cream had a backing of an organization. Individuals almost never broke through to the mass audience. They may have garnered a niche or cult audience but never were true players on the national scene. And this was true for all forms of media and entertainment.
Does it make a difference how good the war reporting of Michael Yon is? I can argue that it makes no difference at all, because anything of importance to my life that happens occurs in Washington. If he is not covering that, then what am I gaining? And if I need a second expert to cover Washington, then wouldn’t it be better to have an organization who puts them together to make a whole that is larger than the two individual parts? That’s institutional journalism. You’re telling me it’s not needed, but your example shouts to me that it is required.
Copyright is just that, the Right to Copy. Paying for OLD articles published by the original creator is not copyright. They’ve already been paid for their work. But, keeping up a website costs money in technology and people to maintain that technology. Plus, websites are not limitless space. The larger it is, the MORE money it costs. So I “could” understand charging a fee, or subscription, to access old articles. If it’s important enough for someone to see it, it’s important enough to pay a small fee for it. (Even “free” public libraries require funding from somewhere.) Information may want to be free, but just like my dog, MY responsibilities for providing him the freedom he wants is NOT free.
What I DON’T understand is the exhorbitant fees they want for that old information. If it’s too much, and nobody is willing to pay it, then they assume that there’s NO market for it. Rather than making an intelligent effort to find out what the “market will bear.”
The RIAA is another prehistoric creature heading for extinction by selling you ONE song for $20, and then acting all altruistic by throwing in 10 other crappy rejects that you didn’t want.
Sorry, I can’t get my head around the concept of lumping print journalists in with televised “news”.
Got this in my e-mail today:
Dear NYTimes.com reader,
As a frequent reader of NYTimes.com, you’ve demonstrated an uncommon interest in a wide variety of today’s most important topics. This makes you anything but average. In fact, it can’t help but make you “smarter” — just the kind of person we at Lincoln want to engage.
Though NYTimes.com will soon begin charging for unlimited access*, Lincoln is offering you a free digital subscription for the remainder of 2011. Enjoy all that NYTimes.com has to offer every day — investigative news and special reports, videos, blogs and more. It’s all yours at no charge, compliments of Lincoln.
Take advantage of this limited-time offer** to receive free, unlimited access to NYTimes.com.
** This offer expires on March 27, 2011.
This message was sent to inform you of an important change to our Web site and digital news applications. Please note, if you have chosen not to receive marketing messages from The New York Times, that choice applies only to promotional messages. You will continue to receive important notifications that are legally required or could affect your service.
© 2011 The New York Times Company | 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018 | Privacy Policy
[non-text links & graphics omitted]
Who’s Lincoln?
The car division of General Motors. (Sorry it was clear to me from the logo in the email.)
I have no idea why Lincoln or GM would want to give me anything – I haven’t had a car for the past twenty years.
I don’t really read the NYT much anyways. I don’t even usually bother to go there from external links because it’s been such a pain to get to those articles.
But in general, if it was content I really respected and got a lot of use out of, I might pay. For example, New Scientist magazine.
It seems like newspapers should just get their revenue from advertisement, like most other forms of media manage to do. In the past, the paltry cover charge I assumed was just to cover some of the physical costs of printing. But perhaps more newspaper revenue was from classifieds than the conventional ads? In which case I’d guess they’ve been pretty much demolished by craigslist.
In depth, uncensored, good reporting is essential. I don’t see a lot of it actually happen though, except perhaps on niche sites. There may need to be some combination of conventional revenue news, government and benefit sponsored public new reporting, and niche reporting.
Still, I think most websites are better off with a combination of advertisement (which revenue increases with free content), paid extras, and micropayments (btw when is that ever going to happen?). Certainly they should take advantage of the greater ease for an international market.
That’s my understanding: The big source of advertising revenue for newspapers has traditionally been the classified ads, and that has almost completely disappeared in the last ten years. Worse, they can’t count on it for their online editions either, because of craigslist, monster, etc.
I have recently paid for online subscriptions to a couple of English papers (the Times and the Guardian) in order to get access to their extensive archives, so I have no general objection to the NYT’s new model. Personally, I’m not a New York Times reader, so I won’t expect to sign up for it.
Now, if the Washington Post follows suit, I’ll probably pay for that.
I got the same offer. It was sent out to the 200,000 heaviest users of NY Times online. I decided to try it.
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20110318/FREE/110319858
Now I’m sitting on the New York Times website hitting refresh and hoping to get that interstitial ad. I thought I was a heavy user of the website, but perhaps I don’t qualify because of my demographics.
JoelUpchurch said…
Thank you. I really had wondered.
And a friend tells me that Lincoln is a car division of Ford, not GM.:smack:
And here’s what I think will happen, and I find it hard to believe that anyone under 35 with an IQ of more than 120 contributed to this decision. IF there isn’t already, there will be many Twitter feeds that exclusively link to all the NYtime’s stuff. It’s not rocket science. Smart and savvy young people will still get what they need. Now, will the Times sue them? Without a doubt. Will it get ugly? Certainly. I would have paid $5/month. $35/month for computer access is highway robbery.
There should be a system in place to pay per article or pay per block of 5 or 10 articles; I know lots of people who browse it 1, 2 days/week who are in that amorphous 20-30 article area who are just going to drop it.
To those who are going to WashPo, you will be disgusted. It’s pretty much actual garbage.
I too was one of the extremely lucky 200k users who were offered it free through Lincoln. And boy did I jump on it.
Dewey, correct me if I’m wrong, but is that feed actually run by the Times? If so, that’s entirely inexplicable. It’s not verified, but supposedly they don’t verify anymore (Sheen still got verified).