Asking People to Pay for News: What He Said

The printies are out in force this week chasing phantom solutions to the newspaper industry's problems, and it's all getting rather tiresome. The latest wrinkle is the hoary "Let's force people to pay for newspapers online" suggestion, now raised by former Time magazine editor Walter Isaacson. 

Yawn. 

I'm really having trouble summoning the energy to comment much more on this ridiculousness, and fortunately, in this case, I don't have to: somebody else has done it far better than I can. On his excellent Hitsville popular culture blog, former newspaperman Bill Wyman does a nice job of demolishing Isaacson's argument. Among other things, Wyman points out that the fundamental tenet of the argument is false: newspapers never made money off of subscriptions (or street sales) in the first place, and thus have always been advertising-based. Get that?

Wyman also gets to the bigger-picture heart of the matter:

The more I think about it, the biggest problem the press has is that the evaporation of advertising has meant that the news it publishes has to stand on its own two feet.

Sure, back in the day there was some foreign news, some local reporting, some great reporters and editors sprinkled across the country. But let’s face it, most newspapers sucked in all sorts of ways, and one of the main ways was opting toward blandness and timidity wherever possible, as as not to offend the older folks subscribing to the papers. 

...

The truth was, it didn’t matter what they published. People just subscribed to newspapers! For the ads, because they always had, some even for the news.

Now, things are different. Online, you have to publish stuff people want to read, or fashion it to seem that way. That’s the transition that’s killing newspapers; it’s something most reporters, editors and publishers never had to do.

Bravo! 

I really have to wonder if some of the gross naivete being displayed by otherwise smart editors obsessed with charging people to view newspaper content on the Web is somehow related to most journalists' chronic aversion to understanding the world of business, in particular the business models that underpin newspapers and the Web. Otherwise, they wouldn't make these sorts of illogical assertions about how news should be supported–and they might spend more of their brainpower thinking about creative ways to actually become successful online, rather than trying to photocopy broken old print models.

Ironically, I tend to be more liberal than most Web folks in thinking that there are ways to collect money from Web site visitors in certain circumstances. But it doesn't work in anything like the way traditional all-you-can-eat subscription models worked. There may be some opportunities for some newspapers (and other news organizations) to create niche-based, premium products that certain targeted audiences will pay for. But the idea that forcing readers to pay for general online newspaper content will somehow magically solve the industry's problems–never mind the horrific effect subscription plans would have on traffic-based ad revenue–is just folly. Enough already.

Comments

[Evan Rudowski]

Mark,

I've been enjoying your blog; you are one of the early online newspaper pioneers and you speak with great authority.

You are right, there is no point forcing people to pay for the same old newspaper content online.

However, I am glad to see your open-mindedness about the opportunity to charge for the right content online.

My company, SubHub, hosts hundreds of subscription websites, so we know the model works. Very few are run by traditional newspapers, although a number have been launched by print newsletter publishers covering niche subjects. And many have been launched by journalists, authors and others.

To get people to pay for online subscriptions the content must ideally possess four key elements: originality, authority, timeliness and actionability. It must offer real value to the reader, enabling them to make money, save money, or enhance some other activity such as a hobby, profession, personal interest, or health.

Newspapers sometimes create content that fits these criteria, but not consistently. Still, the opportunity is there for them to focus more on doing so.

The main point is that the model works, if publishers adapt to the model. That's why I continue to challenge the people ("socialist digerati," as Henry Blodgett calls them) who stubbornly insist that "content must be free." Following that logic is a trap for any publisher seeking to identify a range of business models that might work.

Best wishes,
Evan Rudowski

[tgdavidson]

>

I could quibble with the premium model - heck, even the porn sites are getting slaughtered by all the YouTube porn knockoffs. But that's a quibble, Mark.

The analysis is spot on - especially calling out the folly of gluing the old print model onto the digital world.

This is not a surprise: Too many of our existing "online newspaper" efforts are little more than exporting existing text-driven print content onto the web. It's take too many of our organizations 15 years to figure out that the medium (especially in a broadband world) displays information differently, and that the audience is demanding (and consuming) more varied forms of story telling (narrative photo galleries, anyone?).

-tgd