The answer to journalism’s failing business model is not to counter it with equally bad business practices. Ever hear the saying “Why buy the cow if you’re already getting the milk for free,” well, apparently Walter Isaacson, author of How to Save Your Newspaper has not.
How to (Cough) Save Your Newspaper
According to Isaacson, newspapers are losing money because they haven’t found an easy and non-threatening way to sell their online content.
Since newspapers, in online form, are more popular than ever, Isaacson thinks most people would “merrily click through if it were cheap and easy enough” like a “nickel for an article or a dime for that day’s full edition or $2 for a month.“ If iTunes can do it, why can’t newspapers? How else is full global coverage going to be funded? As Isaacson says, the porn industry might even want to consider this new micropayment method.
The old advertising-only method, Isaacson writes, puts the focus on adds rather than news content. If the content became the new cash cow, then the focus would be back on the news. In order for journalists to keep doing good work, they need to be paid for it.
Henry Luce, co-founder of TIME and Rupert Murdoch, whom Isaacson uses as expert examples, were against free online newspapers because they knew people would stop paying for the hard copy. If you want people to value the newspaper then you can’t give its content away for free. So charge people a few cents for the content and even thought the web is teeming with free news sources, people will respect you and pay for it.
Comic by Sidney Harris
Comic by Sidney HarrisMicropayments: How You Won’t Save Your Newspaper
In opposition to micropayments, founding editor of Slate magazine Michael Kinsley wrote the article You Can’t Sell News by the Slice.
He argues that readers have never had to pay for the content, only the physical paper, and they shouldn’t have to start now. He suggests that giving away the content can be good for publishers who will have less distribution costs. Especially since the amounts Isaacson suggested for his micropayments wouldn’t even come close to what newspapers are making now, Kinsley says.
Kinsley also argues that the lower barriers to entry due to the ease of Internet publishing has increased competition, which is good for the news business. “When the recession ends, advertising will come back, with fewer places to go,” Kinsley writes. And when the economy turns around, the best online news competitors will be poised for success.
If it Wasn’t Already Obvious...
...micropayments won’t work.
Newspapers can’t guilt online readers into paying for content because, unlike downloading movies, music and books, reading news from alternative sources isn’t illegal. In fact, some of these informal sources are even more informative and less biased than some mediums of traditional journalism ( cough-Fox News).
Even if all the major newspapers started charging for their online content, readers would just turn to blogs like the Huffington Post and upstart online news publications like USC's Neon Tommy. Some of these new media outlets have found a different way to make a profit; I suggest newspapers follow their lead because the days when people paid to subscribe to old dinosaur newspapers are over.
He argues that as soon as someone smart figures out a new business model for providing free online news coverage (and someone will do it) micropayments will only serve to decrease the competition for these media trailblazers.
Masnick advises that traditional journalists take an economics class on how pricing and competition works, hint: competition drives prices down.
I suggest we keep looking for a way to make journalism profitable and in the meantime take advantage of the new voices and techniques that have sprung up in the wake of online journalism. But, you know, if micropayments still sounds like a good idea to you, go ahead and try, you can’t make things any worse than they already are.
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