It’s been interesting to watch the response over the last few weeks to the news that the Boston Globe owners are threatening to shut down the paper. When something people take for granted, like a daily newspaper, is at risk of disappearing, only then do they speak up: bloggers, led by the CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Paul Levy, have joined in on an online rally actor Ben Affleck (who grew up in Cambridge) has spoken out about the importance of the Globe.
But, words are cheap.
People may have a nostalgic attachment to newspapers but will there be enough of them willing to pay the amount of money to keep them afloat? I’m not that hopeful. Online readers/users expect everything to be free and when asked what they would pay for online, give answers that would make publishers and journalists feel a little uncomfortable.
(I’m guilty too. I got my career started with internships at newspapers, but the last time I had a newspaper subscription was eight years ago. The last time I paid for a classified ad was when I was living in Toronto in 2003—before Craigslist had made inroads there.)
Still, some publishers are more optimistic. Three media execs have formed a new company, Journalism Online, to develop a new system where users can easily pay for content from different media outlets through some kind of online account. They say that their new product will be out this fall.
Magazines are looking into jacking up their subscription prices.
I’m skeptical about the reader payment idea. One problem is that it’s too easy to write and post words online. Anyone with an Internet connection can do it, so the value of the published word has plummeted. Users are still willing to pay for music and movies online (though definitely not everyone) because not everyone can produce a good song or movie and most people value a professionally produced song over a song recorded over a webcam in someone’s bedroom. Words, articles, news, on the other hand, are now just commodities. And the mainstream media have lost their decades-long monopoly on content generation. (Clay Shirky gives several other reasons for why an iTunes-like payment model won’t work for news.)
The newspapers are blaming, in part, themselves for this mess. The Globe is kicking itself for being one of the many media outlets that gave away their content for free in the first place back in the 1990s—what one commentator, Alan Mutter, has called the “original sin.” In this article, aptly headlined What went wrong?, a Globe reporter tells the story of how Globe owners, in 1995, turned down the chance to invest in a new website called Monster Board, which later turned into Monster.com, one of the biggest job websites, that also happens to make money. It’s a revealing example of the many miscalculations the newspaper industry has made when confronting (or dismissing) the Web as it emerged and revolutionized communications.
So what to do?
Newspapers can go online only. It’s too early to tell how that will go, but this article from the Guardian tells a cautionary tale of a Finnish paper that went online in late 2007. While the paper reduced its costs by 50 percent, its revenues dropped by more than 75 percent. Researchers using this paper as a case study concluded that it’s worth a newspaper’s while to go completely online only when income is at least 31 percent lower than costs.
We could ditch newspapers altogether and rely on the growing number of online-only news (or news-like) websites. This article rounds up several examples of local sites such as Everyblock and Patch. Many of these new local sites were started up by former (laid off) newspaper journalists, such as the Seattle Post Globe and the Bay area’s The Public Press . And then there are sites covering international news (GlobalPost), state news (six sites run by the Center for Independent Media), and public interest news (ProPublica). Wade Roush, a friend and former colleague writing over at Cambridge-based Xconomy argues that all these new sites can do better than legacy newspapers.
Journalists can strike out on their own, with their own blogs, Twitter feeds, etc. I joined in a webinar last week where the speaker, Paul Gillin, a former print journalist turned social media guru, said that journalism is becoming more person-centric rather than publication-centric. Increasingly, online users find out news via their social networks; they follow the feeds of their friends on social media sites. So nowadays, that’s how news is being made and disseminated—on Twitter, Youtube and other social sites, long before the mainstream media get any whiff of it, as seen with the examples of last year’s Motrin Mom incident (a Twitter furor caused the makers of Motrin to pull a controversial ad) and more recently with the video made by the Domino’s Pizza employees that went viral and became more than just a headache for the pizza company.
In this environment, in order to remain relevant and on the forefront of breaking news, Gillin said journalists should be very plugged into these social networks. They should build their own personal brands and turn themselves into must-read sources of news and info by using this array of social media tools, without having to rely on a publication.
Another solution I’ve heard bandied about is that general interest publications have become too general in a world where special interest communities and niche markets can so easily come together on the Web. So how about focusing the Boston Globe on just local/state news, higher education, health care and the high tech business—the three industries Boston’s well known for? Perhaps it’s too late…Xconomy is covering technology and business in more depth than the Globe can now (disclaimer: the people behind Xconomy are friends and former colleagues of mine). Politico, focused on DC politics, gained prominence during the presidential campaign and is giving the DC bureaus of the big papers/networks a run for their money.
Another key element to new news sites will be community. As news is being democratized (being reported and written by just about anyone) journalists can co-opt them and work with them, rather than feel threatened by them. Paul Gillin, in the webinar I attended, said that news sites should involve niche communities and use them not just as readers but as sources and gatherers. Build and engage the community and that will keep them keep them coming back to your site. And, an engaged community tends to be active and responsive—something attractive to advertisers.
The big question is: can any of these sites make enough money to survive in the long term? How would they do that? I thought it was really telling to see one of the co-founders of Twitter, Biz Stone, look slightly uncomfortable in his chair when Stephen Colbert grilled him about what the company’s business model was. There was more than just a little hand-waving there from Biz, I thought.
Perhaps it’s time we all accept that journalism is a public service, not a for-profit business. As Shirky has written, now’s the time to do lots of experimentation with new ways of delivering—and paying—for news. Advertising, user fees, subscription fees, philanthropy, latching a news site onto another far more lucrative business, some combination of the above…I am eagerly waiting to see the results of the experiments.
The discussion is live and well, with lots of ideas being tossed around. I only hope that some of these new ventures stick around long enough to help us figure out how to keep journalism alive, decently funded and vibrant.
There’s a ton more insightful material out there on the future of journalism and newspapers. Check this out for a long list of posts written by pundits more qualified than me on the future of news/content.
Last updated:
Monday, 20 Apr
2009 - 17:37 UTC
Indeed, as I have argued recently again in my post The price we don’t pay , if it’s become considered a public service, it should be financed like a public service.
Corie, that’s a very interesting post, thanks. I take issue with this:
I think there is still some differentiation between good, bad and indifferent writing, and there are people willing to pay for good quality writing.
Yes, good point, Frank. I was trying to say that anyone can write…not anyone can write well. I just wonder if there are enough readers out there able to differentiate between good and bad writing/journalism—enough willing to pay the amounts needed to support the cost of good journalism? I don’t know.
Here’s an example: The Pulitzer Prizes were announced yesterday—the top journalism prizes in the US. One of the winners, Paul Giblin, was actually laid off after writing his award-winning story for a local Arizona paper. He’s now writing for a new news website covering Arizona politics.
I’m going to be a little controversial, but if people decide that they are getting now from other sources (and for free!) what they used to pay to get from the newspapers, who are we to say that this is not good enough? From my perspective, the current crisis that newspapers are facing now stems from the fact that their added value (call it good quality writing, or any other reasons offered by proffesional journalists to claim that they are irreplaseable) is not perceived by the general public as high enough to justify the extra expense.
Sure, there are a lot of things that don’t have a wide appeal and yet are considered “good for you” and thus funded with public money, but the costs of producing and distributing a good quality daily newspaper are so high that I really have trouble seeing it happen. My point is that is a bit hard to hear the arguments from proffesional journalist without thinking that their bottom line is “the public is just too dumb to realize how important we are”.
Oof, that is controversial, Cristian. I agree, old-school daily print newspapers are probably too expensive to produce given what the public is willing to pay for these days for content. I just hope that with the fall of newspapers doesn’t also come the demise of good journalism that holds our politicians (and other powerful people), governments, companies and institutions accountable—that’s the added value. For those of us living in countries with a long tradition of a free press, it’s easy for us to take for granted what good journalism does for society. Journalism just needs to find a more sustainable funding model and that includes finding the right medium that allows the important stories to get out without costing too much.
I forgot to add…there are actually studies showing that local politicians do/advocate less for their constituents when local reporters aren’t on their case. So there is some evidence for the value of good journalism.
Ah, you know this is my pet topic these days….will come back here later…gotta run.
I heartily aggree with you in that politicians should keep being under public scrutiny, Corie, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it has to be the printed journals the ones who do the job. In fact, it could be argued that they have been lagging behind when it comes to reporting political scandals. It’s usually bloggers or independent websites the ones that have been excelling on that (probably since Matt Drudge fired the opening shot of the Lewinsky scandal). So, it is pretty conceivable that they will keep doing the same (that’s how they gain notoriety, after all) regardless of whether printed journals remain or dissapear.
BTW, Bora: That essay of yours is a complete tour-the-force on the subject. I tip my hat to you, sir!
I think we’re saying the same thing. Journalism isn’t and should be tied to any medium. More and more people not employed by traditional media are writing and breaking stories through their blogs, Twitter/Flickr feeds, whatever. That’s great. It’s just that we will still need to find some kind of funding model in order to fund the kinds of stories that average bloggers and citizen journalists might not be able to cover very well, such as wars (ie dodging bullets and taking other personal risks), digging up secrets from deep within government/corporations with thick walls around them, etc. Yes, bloggers can do investigative reporting, as Bora said in his terrific piece, but I think there are just too many important stories to tell to not have some kind of organized, funded enterprises dedicated to uncovering those stories. Some of the examples I named in my post might emerge as those new sorts of enterprises…I hope so. I wish them a lot of luck.