3 ms·

I've said it before: There is no value in proper journalism because there's too damn much of it in the market. I think the subscriber model will work much bette

I've said it before: There is no value in proper journalism because there's too damn much of it in the market. I think the subscriber model will work much better once 70% of these companies have died off and the remainder can get back to real journalism. If the better ones have to survive the storm by taking on sponsored content, that's what has to happen. At one time we had tons of newspapers for every moderately large city, and now all of those papers are now online and expect to make money covering all the world's news like they did before. The problem with that is none of them are geographically limited anymore, they distribute everywhere, which probably sounded awesome to them until they realized all their old competitors and a couple million more they had never heard of were all doing the same thing and eating their lunch. The problem with news online right now is there is just way too much of it, there is demand, but when you can get more or less the same information on 5,000 different sites, who the hell cares what your particular site has to offer? Add to it some blocking users of adblock or switching to a subscriber only model, and you have a clear reason why these companies can't make money.

rthomas6 11y ago
That makes a lot of sense. It follows, then, that the way forward is to hyperlocalize, either geographically or in a particular subject matter. And come to think of it, I would find much greater value in a detailed news site about my city, or even my particular section of my city.
- hobs 11y ago
  It has been tried (though you could argue not well.) I feel like it was either Yahoo or AOL who tried hyperlocal news and it did not gain traction. However, you could argue that this lack of traction was due to the climate of the users and what they were interested in at the time, they also (if I remember correctly) were actively paying local "reporters" who had a specific local beat.
  - rthomas6 11y ago
    That's not authentic and not really what I want. There is zero chance that a single reporter reporting to a mothership in another city could generate better content than a local paper. After thinking about it, what I want already exists in limited ways. Some examples for my city: clatl.com atlanta.eater.com atlanta.curbed.com In addition to these, I think a small monthly paper devoted solely to investigative journalism in a particular city or town would generate enough paying subscribers to be viable, but I could be wrong.
    - ghaff 11y ago
      They exist but they're largely labors of love that probably depend on certain demographics. The chains with local stringers for smaller city papers are terrible.
  - pcai 11y ago
    You're probably thinking AOL. AOL bought patch.com for hyperlocal and failed, laid off staff in an attempted turnaround, failed the turnaround, then sold to it to an investment firm www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2014/01/15/aol-hands-off-patch-to-turnaround-firm-hale-global
- hughw 11y ago
  In Austin we have the fabulous Austin Monitor [1]. You want to know whether Commissioners Court is going to add shoulders to your county road? The Monitor's your destination. And on the topic of sponsored content, I just visited it, and found this editorial comment: "I’ll use this space to note that, while sponsorship revenue is key to our survival, we remain hesitant to test the waters of sponsored content for the Monitor. Many – most? – of our colleagues around the news publication world have settled on this concept as a way to quickly boost revenue in an ecosystem starved for it. But we worry about the impact it would have on our credibility. "That said, we’ve experimented with a version of what the Voice of San Diego calls “Partner Voices,” a space for sponsored content from area nonprofits. To make this work – read: to keep it off the Monitor‘s page – we figured we’d post it on the CoTMF website. Thus far, we’ve found little interest, but we’re happy to continue to entertain the idea."[2] [1] http://www.austinmonitor.com http://www.austinmonitor.com [2] http://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2016/03/publishers-note-whispers-more-sponsorships-and-watson-and-alder-on-transportation/ http://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2016/03/publishers-note...
petra 11y ago
Still, it's extremely easy to take an article and create a legal replica of it. And since most users care about articles, not about magazines, And a lot of content isn't that time sensitive for most users, it's hard to see how competition will decrease.
strommen 11y ago
The vast majority of national and world news printed in newspapers is written by the Associated Press. There are licensing fees associated with AP, but it's not like the Dubuque Telegraph-Herald has a reporter on staff to get the latest scoop on the upcoming Supreme Court nomination. The internet severely disrupted newspapers' business, and it took a while for them to figure out how to adapt. Many of them have settled in and become profitable, mostly using a free-for-X-number-of-articles model. Unfortunately, many newspapers initially took the approach of making everything free over the internet. This conditioned the readers for free content, and made it tough to get money in the door for online access. That seems to be changing though.
- FussyZeus 11y ago
  The source of the content is irrelevant (however interesting, TIL). There are too many companies disseminating the same content, as you point out, for free to make the other companies viable unless the consumers feel particularly inclined to that given company. The New York Times, for example, would probably have an easier time getting subscribers than the Dubuque Telegraph-Herald because they have more reputation, deserved or not. From pure market forces though which the vast majority of consumers operate on, they have no reason to subscribe to NYT -or- DTH because there are a thousand other small papers distributing that same article as you've pointed out for free.
nsgoetz 11y ago
There is good journalism out there - you just have to be more picky to weed out all the bad sources. Fivethirtyeight is probably my favorite resource. Even though they have a niche, that niche is data driven articles, which to me means evidence driven journalism. I'll never get 100% of my news from them, but it is a strong start. I honestly am not sure how they make money. I know they are owned by ESPN (so... Disney by extension?), but not much more than that.
- ghaff 11y ago
  ESPN makes big bucks off football--in particular. FiveThirtyEight adds Dara-driven highbrow to their coverage. The rest is even more loss leader.
  - Godel_unicode 11y ago
    I'm confused, are you saying that more journalists should not try to emulate this model of using data and science to determine what's really going on?
    - ghaff 11y ago
      No. I was responding to a question about how they make money. They probably don't really but serve as a loss leader for ESPN. That's not a comment on how things should've but how they are. I do think that data journalism in general is a positive trend but am not sure it makes a big impact in the news business model.
- FussyZeus 11y ago
  "Good" journalism is extremely subjective and in my experience aligns more with the political leanings of the consumer than with any measurable qualities. I'm not saying it's ALL crap of course, there are plenty of real reporters researching real things (ironically enough, most of them are at Buzzfeed lately) but the vast majority of coverage is just parroting other publications with their own slant added to avoid copyright issues. I mean how many times has some completely made up and utterly nonsense story gone from a twitter post to all over our most credible newspapers because nobody bothered to Google it before putting on Page 1?

rthomas6 11y ago

That makes a lot of sense. It follows, then, that the way forward is to hyperlocalize, either geographically or in a particular subject matter. And come to think of it, I would find much greater value in a detailed news site about my city, or even my particular section of my city.

hobs 11y ago
It has been tried (though you could argue not well.) I feel like it was either Yahoo or AOL who tried hyperlocal news and it did not gain traction. However, you could argue that this lack of traction was due to the climate of the users and what they were interested in at the time, they also (if I remember correctly) were actively paying local "reporters" who had a specific local beat.
- rthomas6 11y ago
  That's not authentic and not really what I want. There is zero chance that a single reporter reporting to a mothership in another city could generate better content than a local paper. After thinking about it, what I want already exists in limited ways. Some examples for my city: clatl.com atlanta.eater.com atlanta.curbed.com In addition to these, I think a small monthly paper devoted solely to investigative journalism in a particular city or town would generate enough paying subscribers to be viable, but I could be wrong.
  - ghaff 11y ago
    They exist but they're largely labors of love that probably depend on certain demographics. The chains with local stringers for smaller city papers are terrible.
- pcai 11y ago
  You're probably thinking AOL. AOL bought patch.com for hyperlocal and failed, laid off staff in an attempted turnaround, failed the turnaround, then sold to it to an investment firm www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2014/01/15/aol-hands-off-patch-to-turnaround-firm-hale-global
hughw 11y ago
In Austin we have the fabulous Austin Monitor [1]. You want to know whether Commissioners Court is going to add shoulders to your county road? The Monitor's your destination. And on the topic of sponsored content, I just visited it, and found this editorial comment: "I’ll use this space to note that, while sponsorship revenue is key to our survival, we remain hesitant to test the waters of sponsored content for the Monitor. Many – most? – of our colleagues around the news publication world have settled on this concept as a way to quickly boost revenue in an ecosystem starved for it. But we worry about the impact it would have on our credibility. "That said, we’ve experimented with a version of what the Voice of San Diego calls “Partner Voices,” a space for sponsored content from area nonprofits. To make this work – read: to keep it off the Monitor‘s page – we figured we’d post it on the CoTMF website. Thus far, we’ve found little interest, but we’re happy to continue to entertain the idea."[2] [1] http://www.austinmonitor.com http://www.austinmonitor.com [2] http://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2016/03/publishers-note-whispers-more-sponsorships-and-watson-and-alder-on-transportation/ http://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2016/03/publishers-note...

petra 11y ago

Still, it's extremely easy to take an article and create a legal replica of it. And since most users care about articles, not about magazines, And a lot of content isn't that time sensitive for most users, it's hard to see how competition will decrease.

strommen 11y ago

The vast majority of national and world news printed in newspapers is written by the Associated Press. There are licensing fees associated with AP, but it's not like the Dubuque Telegraph-Herald has a reporter on staff to get the latest scoop on the upcoming Supreme Court nomination. The internet severely disrupted newspapers' business, and it took a while for them to figure out how to adapt. Many of them have settled in and become profitable, mostly using a free-for-X-number-of-articles model. Unfortunately, many newspapers initially took the approach of making everything free over the internet. This conditioned the readers for free content, and made it tough to get money in the door for online access. That seems to be changing though.

FussyZeus 11y ago
The source of the content is irrelevant (however interesting, TIL). There are too many companies disseminating the same content, as you point out, for free to make the other companies viable unless the consumers feel particularly inclined to that given company. The New York Times, for example, would probably have an easier time getting subscribers than the Dubuque Telegraph-Herald because they have more reputation, deserved or not. From pure market forces though which the vast majority of consumers operate on, they have no reason to subscribe to NYT -or- DTH because there are a thousand other small papers distributing that same article as you've pointed out for free.

nsgoetz 11y ago

There is good journalism out there - you just have to be more picky to weed out all the bad sources. Fivethirtyeight is probably my favorite resource. Even though they have a niche, that niche is data driven articles, which to me means evidence driven journalism. I'll never get 100% of my news from them, but it is a strong start. I honestly am not sure how they make money. I know they are owned by ESPN (so... Disney by extension?), but not much more than that.

ghaff 11y ago
ESPN makes big bucks off football--in particular. FiveThirtyEight adds Dara-driven highbrow to their coverage. The rest is even more loss leader.
- Godel_unicode 11y ago
  I'm confused, are you saying that more journalists should not try to emulate this model of using data and science to determine what's really going on?
  - ghaff 11y ago
    No. I was responding to a question about how they make money. They probably don't really but serve as a loss leader for ESPN. That's not a comment on how things should've but how they are. I do think that data journalism in general is a positive trend but am not sure it makes a big impact in the news business model.
FussyZeus 11y ago
"Good" journalism is extremely subjective and in my experience aligns more with the political leanings of the consumer than with any measurable qualities. I'm not saying it's ALL crap of course, there are plenty of real reporters researching real things (ironically enough, most of them are at Buzzfeed lately) but the vast majority of coverage is just parroting other publications with their own slant added to avoid copyright issues. I mean how many times has some completely made up and utterly nonsense story gone from a twitter post to all over our most credible newspapers because nobody bothered to Google it before putting on Page 1?