I’ve heard plenty about the problems newspapers are facing these days. Readers of print editions are becoming a scarcity continuing to make the Internet an enemy. Newspapers decided to offer their product online for no-charge and now they are paying the price. They thought they would make their money from advertising, but the plan fell through and continues to worsen in our weakening economy. As newspapers continue to cutback on coverage and employees, the permanent termination of many print publications looms on the horizon. What will newspapers do? The question continues to be asked but few have been able to come up with feasible solutions.
First there is the opinion of Walter Isaacson. Isaacson, in his article “How to Save Your Newspaper” from TIME, writes that the solution is for the newspaper industry is micropayments. The micrpayment plan would charge online readers small amounts each time they come across a story they want to read (something like a nickel or a dime per story). Or, readers could have the option of paying a monthly rate to get all their news. Isaacson believes this model could see success due to the overwhelming success of iTunes. Despite having the option to download thousands of songs for free (illegally) on the internet, many people seem to be fine with paying $0.99 cents for a song. For such small fees, Isaacson believes only a minimal percentage of people who read online news would abandon the medium if there were a small fee involved. And as a result of the fee, Isaacson thinks it would result in more quality journalism saying, “Charging for content forces discipline on journalists: they must produce things that people actually value.”
Michael Kinsley sees getting readers to pay for their online journalism as nothing more than a dream. In Kinsley’s New York Times opinion article entitled “You Can’t Sell News by the Slice,” he says that the biggest problem facing newspapers in the online world is the direct competition with all other papers. Before the Internet each town’s newspaper received its share of success because it was the main source of news in that town. Now, readers can read any newspaper they choose from all over the world. If a system of micropayments were in place, it is probable that the majority of major readers will dish out their money to newspapers based on their size and reputation, not necessarily location.
Kinsey also doesn’t see the micropayment option as a viable way to make money, making the point that if all of the current New York Times subscribers cancelled their print editions and went solely to the web, the paper would lose money because they could not charge similar fees since many of the subscribers are mostly paying for the paper.
The biggest problem I see with an institution of a micropayment system is that there isn’t one now. While I don’t think readers would have initially objected to paying small fees for their news, I don’t see many accepting a new system easily after all the news on the internet has been free for so long. I do believe that it was a mistake on the part of the journalism industry to offer so much news for free online. Now, the industry is in trouble and newspaper employees are being laid off left and right. As an aspiring journalist, I truly hope that online media can find a way to make money so that there would be more secure jobs available for someone trying to break into the business like myself. But the only part of me that truly believes that, is the side that wants to enter into a lucrative business with the chance at being successful. As a consumer of online media, I to would be upset if I could no longer get whatever news I wanted, whenever I wanted. Not that I wouldn’t mind paying small amounts for articles here and there, but the biggest problem would be deciding which to pay for. One of the luxuries of the internet is that you can read articles from so many different newspapers. That luxury would be taken in a micropayment system unless readers were willing make quite a dent in their bank accounts for online newspapers.
And my biggest concern with the system is one shared by Susan Mernit in one of her Huffington Post blog posts. “Could the famously contentious media industry agree to all install metered gates on their web sites, forsaking bits of their ad revenue as they try to switch consumers to micro-paid content?” If one site begins to charge for its content then all must begin do the same if it is to succeed. If the LA Times were to begin using a micropayment system and nobody else followed, why would anybody choose to continue to read the newspaper when there are other respectable newspapers not charging anything. And with so many people getting their news from blogs and other smaller mediums on the internet, there would still be so many free options for news that I just don’t see enough people seeing spending the money just to read a newspaper online.
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