You, Me or Free?

Who will pay for journalism?

News is a commodity- this is undisputable.

Newspaper readership is in decline- again undisputable.

Media industry is diversifying to keep up with technology- fact, fact, fact.

So we have all of these new outlets for news, but the same, if not less, practicing journalists, with even less of a budget…

Disaster? Potentially yes.

If the current emphasis on quality journalism is anything to go by, the pressure is only going to mount for poor overworked journos. Not only will they be expected to continue to churn out amazingly insightful, investigative pieces, but they will be expected to upload it to the internet server, , potentially record it for podcasting, summarise it for snippets, make it available to mobile phone servers (and maybe one day if technology succeeds, teach it to write itself).

A discussion facilitated in class by myself and an equally avid journalist student proposed several options. We consider all to be viable as an option but in the long term, who knows.

Subscription-
In this ideal scenario a user pays for news content online as they would a subscription of a physical newspaper. Obviously this is the ideal scenario. Users have expressed a lack of enthusiasm to the idea- and having much of the world’s news content readily available on other (rival) media suites for free, does little to entice people to subscribe. Exclusivity here may be the key- something the Wall Street Journal is trialling to varying degrees of success (presently there are approximately 80,000 subscribers to its exclusive online content). It offers users limited content online for free, increased content for subscribers and offers packages including a physical copy of its newspaper. Why this works is that the Wall Street journal appeals to a niche market.

Niche Market-
The potential to lure the new audience- the youth- is where niche marketing of newspapers is most attractive as an option. Traditional newspaper sales are decreasing, the magazine industry continues to strengthen within Australia, so why not market a newspaper more like a magazine? Attract the lucrative teen market AND appeal to a more specific advertiser, thus tailoring an attractive option for specific advertisers and guaranteeing revenue.

Stand-Alone Journalism-
This is a very interesting new idea to propose to journalists rather than the media as an organisation. More than a freelancer, these journalists are actively responsible for seeking out stories independently of media outlets.

The positives is that there is no real constraint put upon a journalist (except possibly budgetary), and an investigative piece can be written and then sold and published in a media format that best suits its purpose.

Eg. Back-to-Iraq blogger Christopher Albritton.

There are other potentials to investigate – and alter the ever expanding issue of the media landscape. Publicly funded journalism (like ProPublica) is gaining momentum; civic journalism is a pressing and interesting issue also.

We’ll just have to wait and see what happens in the long run.

Would you be willing to pay for content online?

As a uni student, I would certainly find this difficult and would instead prefer the niche option of newspapers. As an avid magazine consumer, if I could obtain a newspaper that I found a little more energetic, tailored to me, then I would certainly give it a go.