While the newspapers are talking about people paying for content, the question I have is how many people will actually pay for that content?
With all the surveys out there that state that most people, something on the order of 60 to 80% depending on who you listen to will stop at the login page and go on to do something else, is paid content going to be the savior of the newspapers, or it is just going to prolong the death rattle that is the local paper in favor of news and commentary from people we trust.
Yes newspapers have won Pulitzer prizes, and there have been phenomenal reporters from Edward Murrow to Walter Cronkite (both started in written news, then moved to radio, then moved onto TV). But ask me to name a current writer outside of say John Cook or Todd Bishop, I can not think of a modern news paper journalist who’s name I know. The only reason I know John and Todd is because they left their respective papers, and started techflash.
For me there is very little in the papers that is compelling enough for me to visit their web sites, actually buy a paper for home delivery (and what that will do to a legion of newspaper delivery folks is going to hurt as well, I delivered papers for a living in Junior High School), or otherwise try to interact with them as an industry. I get everything I need or want via other news services.
While the paper will bemoan my lack of faith in their reporting, after abandoning most of the television news as too divisive after the last election, abandoning radio after listening to shock jocks and Rush Limbaugh spew on the airwaves, and finally abandoning the papers for not being too timely there is something to be said about the lowest common denominator.
At some point the bar is so low that anyone with an IQ over 100 will abandon the source, much like radio, television, and the news. I just cannot think of a compelling reason to buy the paper, much as I cannot think of a compelling reason to watch TV or listen to the radio.
Getting people to pay for good stuff is going to be difficult, getting them to pay for what passes as news (Michelle wore a dress today, ooh Katie is preggers, the Aporkolypse is upon us, we are all going to die run for the hills) today is pretty sad. I won’t pay for it, let alone read it online for free. It might work for some person who thinks that the Jim Cramer is a financial wizard, but in the other world, maybe paying for news as entertainment is not going to work in the long run.
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Excellent points, Dan. There is no reason to pay for content. What the traditional media has forgotten is that the bulk of their value was aggregating and distributing the news.
Today, we don’t need huge reams of filthy paper that never fold the way you want it. Those were replaced by the on-air “talent” at the local radio station, who was then replaced by the perfect hair and teeth crowd on the idiot box.
Now that technology makes the aggregation and distribution of news – actual news, at that – easier than finding something to watch on TV, there’s no reason to pay for an archaic industry to continue to do things the old fashioned way. They might like to think they own a story, but news is news and just as someone leaked the story to them, once it’s out there, it’s out there and they’re going to need to focus on delivering the highest in quality reporting if they’re going to expect anyone to give them the time of day, let alone pay for content.
We pay for the service – NOT THE CONTENT.
We aren’t getting the paper any more because we’re no longer interested in getting YESTERDAY’S news delivered in a filthy rag that you have to wrestle from a wet plastic bag. Why would we pay for content written by someone being paid to research and report when we’ve got a dozen or more trusted sources truly passionate about the story providing us with a higher quality article for free within an hour of the story even breaking? Simple. We won’t.
The market is changing. These too big to fail types need to start adapting…