The American Press Institute (API) provided a white paper (.pdf; 2.3Mb) to newspaper executives who recently—and almost secretly—assembled outside of Chicago to discuss the future of the news business. The consensus seems to be to build paywalls around corporate news content—walling off that content from being linked to on the internet, thereby tremendously reducing its value. Of course, the newspaper executives can’t come out and say this because any such coordination would be illegal.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The API’s paper outlines models and recommendations for charging for content online, insisting that news organizations “establish a true value for news content online by charging for it.” What is this, 1999? I thought we were discussing the future of the news business. Scott Rosenberg plays along anyway, writing, “News flash: Pricing a product does not establish its value. What you have to do is find a price that people will pay.”
Rosenberg tried this—many variations of it, actually—when he was at Salon. I tried it when I was at Utne Reader. Rosenberg sums it up quite nicely: “We are grizzled veterans of this argument. We have Been There and Done That. We aren’t grave-dancing; we’re saying, ‘Maybe you don’t want to fall into that grave that almost swallowed us.’” Rosenberg and I learned a hard lesson. If you remove yourself from the internet in any way, two things happen: you become immediately irrelevant and the financial picture is even worse.
Doc Searls sums up everything the news organizations need to know:
“I conduct similar audience polls often, though my subject is usually public radio. ‘How many people here listen to public radio?’ Nearly all hands go up. ‘How many of you pay for it?’ About 10% stay up. ‘How many would pay for it if it were real easy?’ More hands go up. ‘How many would pay if stations would stopped begging for money with fund drives?’ Many more hands go up, enthusiastically.”
Dave Winer insightfully writes that Twitter is “both the backroom for journalism and the delivery mechanism.” I hadn’t thought about that until now, but he’s right. The future for news organizations is near-real-time delivery and ubiquity. The money will follow.
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