An email response to this article (it was too long, I thought, for the email thread :-P This is all in my humble opinion):
http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/2009/03/why-media-must-charge-for-web-content.html
Interesting blog posts on paying for online content. Thanks, Gina! There’s been a chorus of voices recently calling for newspapers to start charging for online subscriptions. Many of them have a similar tone: media must charge or it will die.
He has a lot of good thoughts, but I think I agree with Will: his solutions aren’t very specific. Indeed, I’m skeptical that, at this point, a subscription model will work. The NY Times actually already tried a subscription model based on high quality content for extra money. But it didn’t go very far and was extinguished after something like a three-year run. Most publications I’ve worked with have tried to introduce “gated” online content for their readerships—but no one would pay, so they had to open the gates to make any money on online ads.
The highly niched model Mr. Mutter describes is actually one already employed by B-to-B (business to business) magazines. And it’s true, these publications have been able to make enough money from highly specialized demand—some industries have to subscribe to Carpenters Today, or whatever, to keep abreast of the market. A lot of these magazine titles actually use a “drop-off” strategy, in which they give away their magazines for free and are able to sustain themselves through tons of ads.
The problem with this model is that by virtue of their specialty, they cannot reach a very large audience. So, it would be very, very difficult, I believe, to sustain a big media company on this strategy. One exception is that US News & World Report has successfully done this to some extent. Their one issue on top colleges floats the rest of the content for the rest of the year. But do any of you look to the magazine for anything else? Based on what I have read (with greatest respects to the editors), the other content is of wavering value. And I find the whole college list sketchy to begin with (plus it’s credited with starting the college admissions frenzy as we know it!).
I think the micropayment model—a popular discussion right now—is also really questionable. It seems there’s just too much web content out there right now.
The blogger does make a really good point: instead of cutting quantity and quality, news media should think about bolstering unique aspects—which will be likely found in one of the features desks or investigative reporting. I think many analyses of the news industry fail to spend enough time on this point. When I first started working in newsrooms, which was around 2000, newspapers were already struggling to retain “young” readers—and this was before the online crisis. No one really ever figured out why this was happening or how they could solve this. But what they did do was increasingly cut back features desks to funnel more energy toward news desks. At the same time, they responded to the growing online aspects by asking reporters to produce more content on less time. So, as this writer points out, the news community was basically delivering a lower quality product for free.
The big question is not how to save news in general. Reuters, the Associated Press and citizen journalists will make it through for us. The question is, how will we save well-reported, ethical, enterprising features reporting?
So here’s my humble prediction for future of self-sustaining media, as we know it today, if no government agency or generous benefactor comes in to bail out journalism.
Noah’s Ark. We’re in the flood right now. A select one or two websites, such as the
nytimes.com, will make it through. But aside from that, the industry will flatten out as newspapers and magazines will go down. Right now, the problem is there is oversupply. But once the supply plummets, there will be fresh demand for solid content, and new companies will be able to restart on a subscription basis.
I think unless we see some real innovation, this is realistic. The thing is that it sucks to have an entirely shattered industry, so while long-term journalism will be fine, a lot of people aren’t willing to see the short-term journalism as we know it die.
If we are to avoid this, though, I believe in a few possible, even if difficult solutions:
• Innovating HOW we get the news. If the New York Times were to create an NYT Kindle and then charge for it, I think this would work. Though the capital for this is dubious, journalists really should get together with product and software developers. The internet is too much of a free-for-all and a good product like this would help news organizations regain control over their business.
• Quality aggregation (such as Alltop) paired with original content. I think this could hold journalism over in the meantime. The immediate demand right now is for services like Alltop to help the average person efficiently navigate the overflow of content on the web. It’s a bit of a bait and switch, but if journalists could meet this demand and use the traffic to buoy original reporting, this could work.
• Additional services. Have you seen
laughingsquid.com, the popular SF culture website? I have no idea of their finances, but they seem to use high-quality content effectively (mostly in the form of SF event listings) to draw business for internet server space.
• Microservices. Part of the problem is that the traditional news organizations are just too big and too old school to sustain themselves. Journalists might pride themselves for their fight for the common man or woman, but the reality is that many of the biggies, like Newsweek, are stocked with old, white, male, Ivy league graduates. It’s not a problem itself, but it’s symptomatic, I think, of old media in a new media landscape.
Oh, and while we’re on the subject, you wanna sign a petition to help free a journalist detained in Iran? She graduated from my school. :-(
http://noelle.posterous.com/medill-alum-roxana-saberi-held