NYT wants to charge me for online content. Cool.
The Gray Lady wants to charge folks to partake of her online work; you know, because she likes having a staff, a budget and paying rent.
We live in a world that loves now and expects free. I admit to fueling that fire, but we get what we pay for. I’m tired of shoddy reporting–I’ll not call it journalism. It’s not that reporters want to write poorly or get stuff wrong–no one enjoys being factually incorrect. It’s that there are like three people left in America’s collective newsrooms. With one part-time copy editor.
A newspaper can’t do amazing stuff like this, or make folks cry like this, without experienced journalists and a budget.
For some reason, we want to be paid for our own talents and services, but can’t seem to wrap our heads around why newspapers would require–or even desire–compensation. It blows my mind.
So, newspapers of the world: charge me. I’ll pay it in a heartbeat if it helps reinstate a well-stocked newsroom, thoughtful editorials, heart-pounding investigative work and a fact-checker or two. I admire The New York Time’s move and hope other papers follow suit posthaste.
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The interesting thing to me about the internet version of information portals like this, is that many people (myself included) assume that the business model should be one of two things: either pay for content or ad driven. Not both. I’d be fine with paying for something that is worth it if it means never having to see an ad on the site again (see: Pandora), and likewise don’t mind visiting a site with ads if it means I get good content for free. The interesting thing of course is that traditional dead-tree editions of the paper had both: pay for the paper, still has ads.
Having said that, I do think the newspaper industry has drug its collective feet in lurching into the 21st century and there is still plenty of room for innovation when it comes to a business model.
Here’s the trick though: right now I’ve only seen an subscription-based pay model. That’s not what the old papers used to be. I used to be able to not worry about picking up a copy of the paper unless it had something that interested me. If it has a quality piece or something really worthy of being read I could grab a copy for a very nominal fee. Right now there’s no site that I’m aware of that lets me pay $0.50 to have access to that day’s content. Or $.10 for a single article.
Why?
2 reason:
1) Some blogger out there is going to either straight plagiarize and repost the article in 30 minutes (or at least summarize it well)
2) Micropayments are still not common enough or well supported online.
In the meantime we are left having to shell out serious cash (usually in the $75+ range at least) for an annual subscription to a paper that is 90% filled with content that I could get for free just about anywhere else. Just so I could read a single article that looked intriguing?
They have a long way to go.
Paul Nicholson´s last blog ..If I ran the internet…
[...] In Uncategorized on January 23, 2010 at 11:33 am PR Maven Margie Newman just made an interesting blog post about the much-discussed announcement that the New York Times will begin charging for content. That [...]
Paul,
I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that thoughtful, fantastic comment. I agree: they have a long way to go, but at least they are marching down what I believe to be the correct path! Oh, and thanks so much for the link luv on your blog!
m
Margie´s last blog ..My career philosophy summed up in 40 words
Couldn’t agree more. The old Internet & IT mantra “information wants to be free” meant free of restraints, not free of charge. Unfortunately, by offering their content at no charge for years, many media including the New York Times are themselves responsible for setting public expectations. Getting online readers to pay will be a tough sell, but hopefully they will see the value that you describe so well.
Long live The New York Times — the world’s greatest newspaper.
Jim — thanks for stopping by FlackRabbit! I agree: they set public expectations based on a system that then set the paper up for failure. Time now to set some much-needed and long-overdue boundaries!
Margie´s last blog ..Great PR pros defy mediocrity