Information wants to be free, reporters want to be paid, Part 11
“I am personally acquainted with hundreds of journalists, and the opinion of the majority of them would not be worth tuppence in private, but when they speak in print it is the newspaper that is talking (the pygmy scribe is not visible) and then their utterances shake the community like the thunders of prophecy.”
— Mark Twain speech, February 1873
Our debate over the financial future of journalism continues apace. Two frequently quoted commentators on this topic go mano a mano in the Los Angeles Times, one arguing that news must be provided free and the other that the free model is a dead end and publishers must find a way to charge for premium content.
On the free side is Jeff Jarvis — the blogger (Buzzmachine), columnist, professor who so worships the ubiquitous Google search engine that he wrote a book titled “What Would Google Do?”
On the paid side is Alan D. Mutter — former newspaper editor, blogger (Reflections of a Newsosaur), and media analyst.
“Perhaps most important, putting content behind a pay wall robs it of precious Google juice,” Jarvis opines, as if free hits from freeloaders will magically spin straw into gold. “Even if Google can search it, the hidden content will not attract as many of the links and clicks that Google's search watches and values. In American newspapers' sites, as few as 20% of users in a day come through the home page; most come to news via search and links from aggregators, bloggers, feeds and Facebook. Cutting yourself off from that rich economy of search and links is like taking your publication off the newsstand and making your readers walk to your office to buy it.”
Yes, whenever Drudge Report or some other major aggregator links to a Review-Journal story our online visitor volume soars and it adds to weekly and monthly hit count, but how much does it contribute to the bottom line? The latest figures show online advertising revenue, once the great hope of online newspapers, has flatlined.
Reminds one of the businessman who admitted he lost money on every sale, but contended he made up for it in volume.
Mutter on the other hand doesn’t have a definitive answer but sees the free path going nowhere fast.
“As lovely as it would be if all the best things in life were free, the news media, if they are to survive, have to get paid,” he writes, “because the advertising-supported model that classically subsidized the production of journalism is irretrievably broken. I know most publishers will not be able to charge for all the content published on their websites. There is no way anyone can hope to charge online visitors for such generic fare as sports scores, stock prices, government press releases and breaking news such as the recent air crashes reported so dramatically on Twitter. Trying to do this almost certainly would be suicidal.”
Mutter admits many who try the paid model will probably fail, but those who “identify a pressing problem, invent an elegant solution to the problem, test the solution with customers and then continuously refine the solution in response to actual engagement with the market” can succeed, because:
“Consumers increasingly overwhelmed with information will be willing to pay for news and information they can trust.”
Even The New York Times, which walked away from its Times Select paid content for key columnists in favor of getting more online hits, is rethinking its business model.
When Rupert Murdoch bought The Wall Street Journal he intended to take the Web site free, but since has backed off and continues to keep the million paid subscribers instead of seek the advertising bird in the free bush.
Is the work of a professional reporter worth a tuppence?
Hear Mutter address students at UNR:
