The Guardian rounds up the best comments, questions and answers from our recent live chat on tomorrow's journalist – what tools and skills will they need to survive and thrive?
Following News International's decision that the Times and Sunday Times will charge for online access, the news industry is dividing into distinct camps over the question of whether journalism is worth paying to read.
Everyone inthe Centre should know my view: the idea that journalists can gather facts and hold power to account on a charitable basis is nonsensical. The industry was built on the principle of fair payment for quality reporting.Free access to news spells the end of professional newsgathering on which representative democracy depends.
Perhaps out of of self interest, perhaps out of principle, and hopefully because of both, some media groups are reaching the same conclusion. Others remain defiantly hostile to online paywalls. The most successful of the resisters, in terms of online readership, is the Guardian. Sadly it is expanding its reach at the expense of huge financial losses. I wrote about it, and the broader debate, for the Independent.
As we discussed in Ian's lectture yesterday, paywalls have been tried before. And even errecting them again now there is no way to prevent the information from leaking out to other parts of the internet. You cannot succesfully restrict information on the internet, it will leak or be available elsewhere.
If paywalls are to be succesful then they must be a triumph of form over function. The information will be available elsewhere, there will (as Ian said) be no breaking news emprisoned behind a paywall...so any usefulness contained within the information will be available somewhere else.
I believe the only chance for paywalls is in the way they report. Make it shiny enough, enjoyable enough and people will be happy to pay. News industries need to be ready to create what is essentially an entertainment centre behind their paywall in order to deliver news, with an incredibly user-friendly interface and interactivity (news as a process and conversation, not just information). This does not mean resorting to sensationalism however!
There have been paywalls before, but the internet and our perception of it has evolved considerably since then. I'd like to think that now there is enough 'internet experience' out there now to develop intuituve news interfaces behind paywalls that will make them sucessful this time around.
It has never been about information, Paul. If online payment works it will will work by charging a fair price for genuinely original journalism i.e. superb columnists, expert analysts and unique features. Straight news of the kind offered by the BBC, Sky, CNN etc. will not earn revenue. It is arguable that it never has (did readers of the Daily Mail in 1896 buy it for the news or for the features, commentary and competitions?). Every British quality newspaper employs writers and analysts who work for nobody else and whose work is of value to their fans. This is what the 'papers must monetise. I agree that a straight paywall is a crude way to do it, but micro-payments are not yet realistic and, at the moment, one reader who pays is worth more than the advertising revenue generated by a thousand who do not. This crisis is real. Imagining that newspapers can continue to gather facts and challenge government on negative income streams is not going to make it true...and I prefer not to encourage the government subsidy recently endorsed by American academic analysts. T
In response to your article, there is an interesting blog by Adam Westbrook. He is a freelance multimedia journalist, blogger & lecturer with experience in television, radio and online.
He has an interesting view on how charging for content will be the birth of the "Journalist of the future".
This is the link to the blog which he wrote in July 09. It is an interesting view point of a relatively young journalist.
The consensus seems to be that this charging system is too anachronistic - people don't want to pay big sums up front for access. I can't dismiss the move as pure folly, though, as Jeff Jarvis does in today's Guardian, saying this move will leave Murdoch's children with a "dry, dead, beast, the remains of his [...] newspaper empire".
Is that really a foregone conclusion? I wouldn't rush to condemn Murdoch's move. In fact, my first thought would be - does he know something we don't?
There is no reason to believe that he will not choose micro-payment in the near future, John. I think he will. But erecting a pay wall now does not preclude making that choice later. Pay walls have worked exceptionally well at the FT and the WSJ. If British quality newspapers can monetise as much of their traffic as those titles have there will be big smiles in board rooms as well as newsrooms. We are at the beginning of this debate and I think people who claim to know the long term answer display ideology not logic. Only one thing is absolutely plain: in a world of infinite inventory (i.e. a vast multiplicity of places to advertise) it is not wise to imagine that online advertising will duplicate the huge revenue stream once generated by print. In the last eighteen months a lot of people on both sides of the Atlantic have acknowledged this core piece of evidence. It is why I regard with growing scepticism the idea that a diverse and confident range of quality journalism can be funded by advertising alone.
Do you think the fact that the Times is less of a niche publication than the FT and the WSJ will militate against the plan?
Also, what do you make of the recommendations that Schudson and Downie Jnr make? Is it too precious to try and keep state funding out of the newspaper industry? Maybe the press would be more 'free' with a guaranteed source of income than in its current perilous state...
Yes. It is. but possibly not as big an 'if' as the Guardian model. Rusbridger debated this topic on C4 last night with a representative of the FT. The FT man made several excellent points, among them that their readers do not just access them for financial news. Rather they do it for the quality of FT reporting in areas including sport, fashion, foreign affairs and politics. The FT argument is that if you make it easy and convenient to pay for quality news, comment and analysis then broadsheet newspaper readers will happily pay. I hope the FT is right. As for quality: The Times and S. Times have a lot of writing I would happily pay for online or in print. Their coverage of politics, business, books and sport are excellent. Several of the columnists are unmissable and the leader columns are among the best on the market. Re Downie Jr and Schudson: it is a thought-provoking and meticulous effort to answer our question in a specifically American context. I disagree with them about state funding. For me that is a step too far. It is indicative of the depth of the crisis in public service journalism that American liberals can consider it seriously. Michael Schudson knows how controversial it is. I saw him speak in Oxford last month and at dinner afterwards. His endorsement of state subsidy (as one of many possible models) has caused a lot of controversy on his side of the Atlantic.