Fuck Newspapers
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- _niko
a bunch of Canadian newspapers have decided to charge for the online versions of their content, prices range from $9.99 to $19.99/ month.
This seems to be a growing trend as i see more and more newspaper companies starting to do this.
I think they're all delusional. With the wealth of free and user generated news content currently online, is there any reason for people to pay for their news?
- BrokenHD0
they're all owned by the Koch brothers and Rupert anyway.
- HijoDMaite0
"I think they're all delusional. With the wealth of free and user generated news content currently online, is there any reason for people to pay for their news?"
what about the experience, professionalism and reputation of a seasoned newspaper reporter? What you are saying is you would rather get the same news recycled by a free site. Of course I'm only talking about local news because that's what newspapers focus on.
- uuuuuu0
the same people who are loyally subscribed to the paper will pay for it online. more people are using the net regularly and will naturally pay for their fave paper. its the same market and they are basically anticipating their readers to start to use the net more so they are there waiting. it wouldn't work 5 years ago but the market is changing.
i think its mostly older professionals who are used to newspaper subscriptions but are now online a lot with tablets and laptops. i also think a lot of traditional mainstream newspapers are not interested in being apart of the whole web 2.0 social media world, they want a different audience and one that doesn't want to be on reddit. they want an AOL experience.
- i wouldn't be surprised if they will offer group/business rates to give a company access to the paper.uuuuuu
- they will likely have ads as well and their readers won't even blinkuuuuuu
- also they can advertise the online subscription straight to their readers so its not like they are hard to reachuuuuuu
- another possibility is creating a paper/online combo subscription to get them on the netuuuuuu
- print is dead, it costs too much so they want to migrate their readers to a digital model and make more, spend lessuuuuuu
- BusterBoy0
Age of entitlement...hooray. Fuck that, food should be free as well.
- thats not a bad idea..SlashPeckham
- I got a free bag of Phileas Fogg crisps with my free Evening Standard yesterday...NonEntity
- ...usually I wouldnt bother wasting time with the paper, I just took for the crisps and threw it away...NonEntity
- *took it for the crispsNonEntity
- fadein110
This is nothing new - NYT and FT in UK have been doing this for ages.
- animatedgif0
Desperately trying to keep the industry dinosaurs well fed when they should have starved by now
- scoops0
News paper reporters need to get paid too, and not by the number of posts they can put up on a blog. Look at the the big headlines from last night and today about the NSAs breaking of privacy rules. Setting aside the obviousness of the headline, Washington Post had that story for a month or two. They spent that time vetting and researching and gaining nuanced insight into the issues which let them put out a well reported and well written piece that most of the US news media is quoting this morning.
You don't get that kind of reporting from free media. They don't have the time or resources to let 1 or more reporters focus on a story for a month that will run for one day.
Solid journalism is hard to develop, sustain and fund. It shouldn't be mocked because they have to pay the bills.
- free media? Most online news channels have advertisingfadein11
- true, but online advertising revenue is a fraction of what print once was.scoops
- exactly, it's not enough, even for the big boysprophetone
- and yes "free" because that's what you payprophetone
- CALLES0
KANNNNAAADAAAAAA
- prophetone0
so like where do you think you'll get that developed, localized content if they disappear? when you are eating Cheerios in the morning and watching the local morning news team where do you think they get 90% of their stories/discussion from? and on your way to work in the car your local radio station gets their local news from where exactly? newspapers. more now than ever because local tv and radio have depleted budgets nowadays, like everyone else.
now you may not care or prefer this but we are looking at a future of chicken nugget local stories if any and 90% national and/or celeb news. oh yeah and local politicians doing whatevs because they are no longer held to task on A1.
- prophetone0
good luck with that.
- detritus0
My first job was with a decent regional newspaper company here in the UK.
What I found interesting was their economics - in those pre-huge-internet days the newspaper itself (with a solid array of journalists, not merely some local newsdesk regurgiator) was paid for by the cost of the advertising it contained.
The cover price was largely a status thing, that money going to retail and delivery.
- colin_s0
paying for news is INCREDIBLY important.
newspapers are traditionally - and should remain - the public record. sure, organized news screws up from time to time, but most news on the internet in any aggregate form is based on the NYT or WSJ or the tribune company.
there's a reason wikileaks and snowden have worked with the guardian / nytimes / der spiegl. newspapers have foreign correspondents and the available space to write complicated, immersive stories that actually tell us about the world we live in. they don't rely on soundbytes or out-of-context clips in order to narrate.
complaining about newspapers charging for an incredibly important service is ridiculous.
- yup. frankly i'm tired of hearing idiots go on about how we don't need 'em anymore; should be free. good luck w/ ur 24hr perez hilton feed.prophetone
- hilton feed.prophetone
- if they can't figure out a way to make money through advertising then they should close shop._niko
- There's way too many papers out there anyway, all feeding us the same stories. The old model is dead._niko
- and what do smart people like yourself subscribe to?_niko
- democracy, freedom and as few news stories about lindsay lohan as possibleprophetone
- ukit20
"What I found interesting was their economics - in those pre-huge-internet days the newspaper itself (with a solid array of journalists, not merely some local newsdesk regurgiator) was paid for by the cost of the advertising it contained."
And for a lot of smaller local newspapers the local economy was actually a big source of funding. In the pre-internet age they basically had a monopoly on classified ads - if you wanted to sell some furniture, you'd take out an ad in the local paper. Which is why services like Craigslist and Ebay probably did as much to kill off local papers as free online news did.
- d_rek0
Sure, you can get your 'locally' aggregated content from the unregulated blogosphere and myriad aggregate news source. But the problem is they all lack any sort of credible journalistic reputation.
It's inevitable that newspapers will eventually move the bulk (if not all) of their content to be served up online to consumers. The problem is that they are owned by baby-booming dinosaurs who haven't figured out how to properly monetize the experience and perhaps more importantly, haven't figured out how to make it easier for millennials to subscribe to and consume that content.
People can and do pay for content. You just have to make it easy for them to do so. (Apple Store, Netflix, anyone?).
Until newspapers figure out a more robust and user-friendly way for users to subscribe to content online then they will continue to struggle. But they're not going anywhere. And they're not unimportant.
- moldero0
fuck that.
ill just download the news the next day on a torrent site.
"Oh its gonna rain yesterday"
- _niko0
Just curious to see if anyone here actually pays for digital news?
Anyone have a subscription?- yupprophetone
- I do.Continuity
- nytimescolin_s
- Yes. NYTIMES.jacklalane
- Ny times.instrmntl
- absolutely. nytimes.doesnotexist
- _niko0
So I'll pay the Star $19.99/month so that they can tell me that my idiot mayor had a drink on the Danforth? So what, Twitter and Facebook broke that nonsense hours before the Star did.
Any news of real importance or relevance will filter to you one way or another.
Just don't see the need for this, newspapers are operating under an old model, I'm sure they all carry tons of dead weight, they all need to learn to be leaner and more efficient in this digital age.
- old model yes, new models being tested, they are offloading tonnes of dead weight. takes time.prophetone
- should have started earlier? yes.prophetone
- you're clicking through though hopefully to their sites, so twitter isn't the solution.doesnotexist
- Continuity0
I'm frankly surprised a paper like The Guardian can stay in business with that much free content on their site. There's a gargantuan amount of it. If they wanted to charge me 10 €/month to access it, I'd consider it worth it.
- Continuity0
@_niko:
If you're not happy with The Star charging you money to access their content, go to the CBC, the BBC and the Guardian for Canadian and international news, and pick up whatever Toronto's free analogue to Halifax's The Coast is every week for local Toronto news.Problem sorted.
- Alternately, put your money where your mouth is and work on spec. Come back here in a month, and tell us again if newspapers don't have a right to charge for content online.Continuity
- ... newspapers don't have a right to charge for content online.Continuity
- exactly, I just don't get it, seems like a desperation move. I look at those sources and others daily, so i don't see_niko
- what would compel me to pay to access the star._niko
- and you can't compare the work of one man to a bloated under-performing corporation.
who's fat cats at the top make_niko - millions._niko
- I agree they should all be for profit, but figure out a way to make money that doesn't include subscriptions._niko
- Otherwise slim down or close._niko