Recently, the notion of paying for the news has hit the airwaves. Not just paying for the news, but paying for access to news sites. The WSJ.com does it and for television news, you do it by sitting through commercials. Today, Rupurt Murdoch, the owner of all things FOX and MySpace, announced that he was going to begin charging for all online content. His defense, journalism is not cheap. He has hard working reporters on his staff that write these stories and they need to be paid also. As of now, online advertising is not paying the bills, and people have all but completely stopped buying physical newspapers because they can get it online for free. So as a business what are you to do?
The most common response is that the “newspaper” business has become too bloated, as if it is the record industry. I don’t believe that and I don’t think half the folks yelling it do either. The truth is, the internet community is so used to “stealing” things, that the notion of paying for it seems offensive. Don’t get me wrong, the internet has spawned some incredible projects, but those projects have not always been used for good. A great example is the music industry. It cost to make quality music. It cost a lot actually. But because the “internet” is accostomed to getting it for free via stealing in through file sharing, artist are forced to bear these costs on their own. Fortunately, artists can go on tour and make a little money to replace the music that is stolen by there “fans.”
This is where the newspaper industry is at a loss. No one is going to come to a “show” to hear a journalist read their latest expose on the H1N1 virus. However, people will read about it. So what is a journalist to do? How will they be compensated for the hours, days, weeks, and sometimes months, that go into bringing you a quality story? If advertisers are not willing to pay, and user are not willing to click the ads, that leaves only one other model. It is a model by which the end user has to pay for access. Having an online presence is not free. There are costs involved. If I provide you with a quality product, in this situation, quality journalism, I should be fairly compensated. You wouldn’t work for free, so why should they?
Anyway, I read the article and it spawned this “rant” and I thought I would share. Feel free to leave a comment if you like. Happy stealing, internet!
[FT.com]
Kutty, you are awesome! I am on vacation and unplugged for now, but when I return we are going to build on this!
You know what? I WANT him to start charging…put money into online news and charge for it…that way, no one will pay and Fox and all of it’s bullshit will fold.
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!
Pipe dream? Yeah? FINE THEN!
I think the key word was “quality”journalism. The WSJ (and for that matter the Financial times in london and the Australian FInancial Review) have been charging for content for longer than Murdoch has owned the WSJ. They can continue to do so because those publications provide a niche news market to a moneyed industry. The information that the WSJ provides isn’t hanging around on the internet for free. The stuff my local murdoch site (news.com.au) serves up definitely is.
Plus, newspapers have been making ridiculous profits for so long they expect much higher returns than the internet will provide for the quality they are serving up.
Yes newspapers will need a new funding model, but they haven’t developed the structure,or the cooperation.