Is free news killing newspapers?

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1821376,00.html?cnn=yes

by edw519 • 18 years ago

6 7 18 years ago

ojbyrne• 18 years ago

Phrasing stuff as a tautology sort of kills any discussion. History is full of examples of technology advances killing business models. The problem isn't the "free" part because the alternatives will end up costing money in some way (ad-supported at the very least), but the giant cost drivers that the now-dead model is stuck with. Buildings, machinery and people - too many of them.

mynameishere2• 18 years ago

We already know that free news is killing newspapers.

The headline of the article is "The Nightly News, Not-For-Profit" and the point is this: Since companies that produce reporting can no longer sell it, wealthy donors are stepping in to fund its production in order to disperse it for free. Herb Sandler (of moveon.org) is the example given and a frightening one at that. He's a hard leftist, and is using his personal fortune to fund propaganda operations.

I always wondered what would happen to the dead trade of journalism once newspapers were gone. I guess I know now. The mild constraints that the marketplace put on pinko media owners is finished, replaced with direct orders from the Sandlers.

herorev• 18 years ago

I don't think it will matter much if all the big media outlets become saturated to a much larger degree with bias, because consumers are no longer at the whims of "pinko media owners".

In the past, if all the physical newspapers sold if your area had a strong bias (that went against yours), you didn't have many options. But on the internet you can easily switch to a different news source. If all the big players just start pumping out far-left propaganda, consumers can and will go elsewhere very easily.

Differing opinions are more easily accessible thanks to the internet, but the internet also allows people to more easily isolate themselves from differing opinions. In a decade, people may be intentionally consuming news from sources that are tailored to their bias. It'll be easier to hide away from news sources that express ideas you disagree with.

mynameishere2• 18 years ago

easily switch to a different news source

This is because the internet has lowered the costs of distribution and production. It has not lowered the costs of reporting...you still need actual salaried workers to report. Thus the problem. Cheap distribution has lowered the overall price, which is where the money came from to hire reporters.

petercooper• 18 years ago

Newspapers are almost free anyway. A dollar is not much for a gigantic bundle of paper. You're pretty much just paying for the delivery medium.

On the Internet, the cost of the delivery (bandwidth and server costs) is too low on a per user basis to bother charging, so it's "free" but the paper is free to make money the same it does with regular newspapers - advertising.

If anything kills the concept of newspapers, whether online or not, it'd be the self-righteous jerks who run ad blockers. Though, of course, this would lead to in-line ads, and an ever blurry line between editorial and advertising as ads get stuffed into the editorial.

etal• 18 years ago

Some newspapers are completely free. Most charge a tiny amount to avoid the stigma of being a free paper (or, gain the credibility of a for-pay paper). The majority of the paper's revenue comes from advertising -- which also works online (setting aside the ad-block arms race).

As for investigative journalism, I suppose it's just a matter of finding someone willing to pay for it. There's the BBC approach of having everyone pay a little bit for relatively NPOV news, since that's worth a little bit to everyone. Alternately, there's what this article discusses: many small groups are willing to pay more for investigation that may support their own agendas -- or do the investigation themselves, and blog it.

patrickg-zill• 18 years ago

Time to read the 1993 Michael Crichton essay, "Mediasaurus". See http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.04/mediasaurus_pr.html

Is free news killing newspapers?

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