FUTURE
WHAT WILL THE FUTURE OF JOURNALISM LOOK LIKE?
We are living in exciting times. Never have people been so connected – twittering, blogging, emailing. But there is a serious downside to the success of the Internet in connecting and informing people around the world. The world’s news consumers have a host of options. And many of them are free.
What this means is that media organizations are having trouble supporting the journalism that we have seen over the last few decades.
As newspaper owners scramble to find ways to pay the high costs of running their businesses, their news is being picked up for free through their own websites, or through news aggregators. Schemes to charge for content may only work with specialist or niche markets.
In the following, we take a look at a number of key issues and offers links to relevant articles:
- Searching for viable newspaper business models
- Paid Content Advocates
- Journalism Can Cost Big Bucks
- Newspapers’ Online Challenges
Searching for Viable Newspaper Business Models
Walk into the newsroom of any major paper today and you will see reporters and editors busy at their work. This costs money. Take the New York Times. In 2007, total operating costs added up to $2.9 billion. The paper is reported to have generated $330 million in that same year. $330 million sounds a pretty impressive figure for online advertising. Yet this adds up to a mere 11% of operating costs.
Talk to any journalist today, unless they are just on the brink of retiring, and you will find they are concerned about their job and the future of their craft. The Washington Post’s Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward can think themselves lucky to have been young aspiring reporters back in the early 1970s. Maybe in the future some journalists will look back at the last few decades of the 20th Century as the “golden age” of journalism in the West, when two journalists, a gutsy editor, and a tough publisher helped bring down a U.S. government.
Many argue that democracies need a vibrant and questioning press.
In this discussion about the current financial state of newspaper enterprises, we are focusing largely on the media in North America and in Europe. The downward spiral described here is not necessarily replicated in other parts of the world. Check out the vibrant press in India where newspapers are still sold for a few rupees. In due course, we will examine the media in these countries and the occasional exceptions, like a successful political magazine in France. For now we will keep our focus on North America and Europe.
In this rapidly changing media world, how can newspapers survive and prosper? How can readers or news consumers be assured of receiving the results of good journalism?
Paid content or a “pay wall” is being promoted by some newspapers, notably those owned by media magnate Rupert Murdoch, as a way to pay for their journalism. The rationale is that good journalism costs money and people will pay for quality content. This model may work with Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, seen as a “must-read” by people in the business world and yet another business expense that can be charged to their company. But some argue that the horse has already bolted and it is too late to close the gate. Many people now get their news from newspapers online for free. They get it through their newspaper websites of choice. They get it through news aggregators such Yahoo News, Google News or the popular Drudge Report. Why should they pay?
Murdoch’s Way?
Rupert Murdoch
Rupert Murdoch is not stupid. He has been called a lot of bad things, not least by the British print unions that battled against him in the 1980s and lost. The Wall Street Journal is a product that can be described as a “niche product.” He knows he can charge. And the Sunday Times in Britain has a loyal readership. He is gambling he can charge.
Love him or hate him, Murdoch is hard to ignore. The son of an Australian regional newspaper magnate, Murdoch has seldom backed away from a challenge to his news empire that includes Fox News, The Sun, The Times and Sunday Times, The Australian, and the Wall Street Journal.
Possibly to the relief of other newspaper owners, Murdoch is the standard bearer for paid content on the web. All eyes on the Aussie, now an American citizen, as he seeks to charge for content that for many years has been available for free. The problem is one that all online newspaper and media owners face – how to get the rapidly growing online community to grab their credit card, type in the details, and subscribe to a news service, even if the fee is relatively low.
As Murdoch says, providing news costs money. In many cases, it costs lots of money. And online advertising revenue has failed to fill the gap.
Part of the Murdoch plan is to “make content better and differentiate it from other people,” according to his response to a reporter from the UK Guardian. There is little doubt that business people will pay for the business insight they gain from Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal. But will they pay to look at The Sunday Times online, a quality newspaper that in paper form is so big that it is hard to stuff into a post box.
Murdoch on paid content: “The current days of the internet will soon be over”
There are lots of skeptics and there are lots of people torn between the idea that the Internet should provide an open (read “free”) forum and those – including journalists worried about their jobs – who understand that good journalism costs money. Few would deny that such efforts as “citizen journalism” can add to the news mix but at the end of the day, there is a need for paid reporters and editors with the experience and knowledge to provide news that people can trust. The media business has come in for a lot of flak over the last few years (Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction, Stephen Glass, anti-Obama news on Murdoch’s Fox News, etc.) but it provides much needed information and analysis for the man on the street to understand what is happening at home and abroad.
Murdoch is leading the charge for paid content. He will be hoping that others jump on their horses to catch up.
MURDOCH’S CHARGE
The following links examine the paid content or pay wall challenge:PaidContent.org story on Murdoch leading the charging charge
Rupert Murdoch really, really, really wants to charge for online news. Really. At least, he keeps saying so even though by far the bulk of News Corp.‘s online news content continues to be ad supported. He said that would change starting in the next 12 months: “We’re thinking in terms of this fiscal year.”Beginning of paywalls
Charging for online publications is looking more appealing among publishers as we see News Corporation, and The New York Times Company leaning towards the idea of putting up pay walls either for part or all of their websites.Google’s Schmidt to Murdoch: ‘Mass market paywalls won’t work’
Online news is too freely available for Rupert Murdoch’s global paywall to plan to work, according to Google CEO Eric Schmidt.Guardian commentator on Murdoch’s paid content plan
Murdoch is running a paid-content propaganda campaign to save media moguldom. “It is a classic example of both media mogul arrogance and desperation. It suggests that the current media corporations have a divine right to produce movies, TV programmes, music and journalism and, in so doing, to reproduce themselves. They must be preserved at all costs.”Oracular Vernacular? Murdoch, Paid Content and the Emergence of All-Access Pricing
Face it. We’re in a time that seriously lacks oracles. So, apparently, Rupert Murdoch passes for one, given his well-chiseled mien and occasional wont to make pronouncements.Time Magazine on Murdoch’s plan
Other media bosses watch Murdoch.‘Sunday Times’ to become test case for Murdoch’s paid content plan
The Sunday Times website is currently combined with sister title the Times, but it will be launched as a stand-alone site in the fall and will begin charging a fee to access content.Most Users Won’t Notice as Sites Start Testing Paid Content – Poynter
Microsoft and News Corp eye web pact
Microsoft has had discussions with News Corp over a plan that would involve the media company’s being paid to “de-index” its news websites from Google, setting the scene for a search engine battle that could offer a ray of light to the newspaper industry.
The impetus for the discussions came from News Corp, owner of newspapers ranging from the Wall Street Journal of the US to The Sun of the UK, said a person familiar with the situation, who warned that talks were at an early stage.Murdoch courts trouble with web pactWill Murdoch’s deal with Microsoft work?
Lifeline thrown to Editor & Publisher
Editor & Publisher gets new owner
The fate of 126-year-old Editor & Publisher is no longer drifting in uncertain waters. The shuttered newspaper magazine was acquired in January by Duncan McIntosh Co. Inc., the Irvine, California-based publisher of Boating World, Sea Magazine and The Log newspaper.Editor & Publisher is considered the “bible of the newspaper industry,” tracing its roots back to 1884.
Paid Content Advocates
As the debate over how to finance journalism intensifies, advocates of paid content are stressing the importance of paying for news and erecting pay walls. Check out the latest news on the paid content debate on these websites:
PaidContent.org
PaidContent.org is owned by ContentNext Media, a media and information company owned by Guardian News and Media Limited. The company covers the business of digital media, serving decision makers within the media, entertainment, publishing, advertising, marketing, and technology sectors. Founded by journalist Rafat Ali in 2002, the company’s news sites chronicle the economic evolution of digital content that is shaping the future of the media, information and entertainment industries. “Our belief is that in the near future, all media will be digital media, and we are helping define sustainable business models and innovation within this sector.”
Paid Content’s UK site
Journalism Online
Website promoting paid content
Journalism Can Cost Big Bucks
Journalism costs money and good journalism costs even more money. Many of the big names in providing news today, including the New York Times, The Times of London, and The Australian employ large numbers of staff and use large office space and facilities in their news production process. Many of these operations have made major cutbacks in terms of staff and expenses and are calling on their staff to cover for the staff dismissed. In some cases, the cutbacks mean some stories involve little in the way of real reporting and checking. Nick Davies in his book, Flat Earth News, focused on largely on the British news media, speaks of the dismal situation in some newsrooms where reporters are having to report twice as many stories than they used to, with little time, resources or checking.
Even this minimal approach costs money and for many news organizations there is little chance for journalists to spend the time and effort that they used to when chasing important stories. There are occasional exceptions to the rule, as was seen recently with the Daily Telegraph in the UK and their coverage of MPs expenses, but the fact remains that dogged and lengthy pursuit of stories costs money, and most media organizations are having trouble supporting such endeavors.
The cost of journalism
A story that story meets all the criteria of good investigative journalism costs big bucks to report.http://www.motherjones.com/toc/2009/09/editors-note”>The price of truth
What it’s going to take is for many more Americans to decide that quality reporting—be it on local school boards or Iraq or climate negotiations—is as vital to their lives as box scores and celebrity spat, Mother Jones’ columnists ask.Alternative business models for newspapers
Insight into various avenues that may make newspapers pay.Dan Gillmor looks at the debate over how newspapers should be funded
2008 thought piece from Publishing2.com on the difficulties for newspapers in reinventing themselves
Newspapers’ Online Challenges
Not everybody is online
Moving online is proving a painful transition for many newspapers. Yet with some creative thinking, the Internet also offers newspapers opportunities to provide far more than they could in paper and ink. Some papers are providing videos and interactive media that will grow in importance as the Internet news experience grows more graphic. What could be seen as innovative this year could become the norm next year. For newspapers, keeping on the front edge of development is the challenge.
Today, web surfers expect a visual experience as well as more possibilities to interact with their news sites. Many major news sites include videos as well as the option to comment on stories and issues, and a contact address to if need be rap the reporter over the knuckles over a story. This presents challenges for media owners as well as the reporters.
Many reporters are doing more than scribble in their notebooks. Audio and video have become part of the mix. And Twitter, Facebook and other networking tools are not just a way to keep in touch with colleagues and sources, but also a way to keep in touch with a more demanding audience.
Shorter stories. New ways of storytelling. New ways of interacting. And opinion matters, judging by the flourishing of blogs on newspaper websites. All this provides a challenge not only for the reporter, but also for newspapers as they try to provide more than a story with a photo.
Has the Internet killed print journalism?Wikipedia co-creator Jimmy Wales debates internet cultural critic Andrew Keen on the fate of print journalism in the digital age
