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Note that Guardian is successful, because of "supporters" and not >subscribers<. It's different than WSJ, where they lock the content, until you pay. The Guardi

Note that Guardian is successful, because of "supporters" and not >subscribers<. It's different than WSJ, where they lock the content, until you pay. The Guardian way looks more like the Wikipedia one.

aleph_naught 9y ago
I really like the wikipedia model, but I know it wouldnt work for every outlet. I’ve contributed more to public radio and wikipedia than any other news service subscription. Ideally, nytimes/wapo/economist would be completely open, and one would be able to ‘donate’ with a single press of the apple pay button. I prefer that over yet another username password combo + subscription + app echo system I need to maintain. Or best of both worlds: single click of apple pay button sets a cookie for 30 days of access; sends a courtesy reactivation email with a link in case you clear your cookies.
- Pxtl 9y ago
  The big worry is that this doesn't work for local news at all. The nitty gritty details of governance happen at the local level - municipal and state/provincial legislatures. Journalism on that stuff doesn't scale.
  - inetknght 9y ago
    Where's the proof that it doesn't scale to local level?
  - disantlor 9y ago
    but local ads on local content are legitimately useful and the only type of display ad i’ve ever clicked on.
  - bondolo 9y ago
    It is working in my community. http://www.berkeleyside.com/ http://www.berkeleyside.com/ has run a (very modest) profit for the last two years and continued to expand. Their focus is the greater Berkeley area; a population of about 350,000. It is a more educated and well-off population than national averages. The revenue split is 65-35% between supporters and advertising. They've also recently done a direct public offering of stock allowing for $800K in investment. Local news, supported locally is possible.
    - eropple 9y ago
      Berkeley is profoundly out of the norm for American communities. Berkeley has money. Other places don't. This problem is not solved by the way things work where the money flows freely. Berkeley has 350,000 people in it. It's also eighteen square miles in size. The entire Portland-South Portland-Biddeford MSA in Maine is about half a million people and it's two thousand square miles in size. And it certainly wouldn't in my hometown in the Lakes Region of Maine, with a population across four towns in the school district of about 15,000 people across a little under two hundred square miles. The problem devolves to income inequality and the unsustainable nature of community-driven efforts because of it--nobody can afford it!
  - bogomipz 9y ago
    Why are they mutually exclusive? Newspapers have always had a local section.
  - Spivak 9y ago
    But it doesn't need to scale. It needs to be as big as the area it services.
    - eponeponepon 9y ago
      Hubris can be a powerful motive force. You get as big as the area you service, you think "I could do more than this", you get bigger, you service a larger area, you think "hey, is this enough..?" - and before you know it, the Manchester Guardian is a worldwide media company.
  - menssen 9y ago
    Arguably it works better. Minnesota Public Radio has 127,000 members [wikipedia], which is a bit over 2% of the population of MN. They do a far better job covering stuff like city politics than any other news organization in town. The Guardian has 300,000 members [this article], which is 0.4% of the population of the UK. (And arguably, the better denominator would be the entire anglophone world.)
- jimnotgym 9y ago
  The Guardian was so like the Wikipedia model that Jimmy Wales was a board member of the trust. I would add a link to his wiki entry but it seems a bit recursive
icc97 9y ago
Indeed, here's the relevant CEO quote in the article: > "We recognize we have to get more direct-to-consumer revenue over time, and the way we will do that is through membership-type propositions, but it’s going to be much more than a paywall. A paywall is to me an inverse loyalty scheme, where the more you consume the more you pay, which doesn’t seem to work."
- allengeorge 9y ago
  What if you pay as you consume up to a maximum? That would transition repeat users into, in effect, subscribers.
harryf 9y ago
> The Guardian way looks more like the Wikipedia one Have any newspapers experimented with crowd-funding stories? This Niemanlabs report suggests none of the big names had as of Sept 2016 - http://niemanreports.org/articles/crowdfunding-the-news/ http://niemanreports.org/articles/crowdfunding-the-news/ - wonder if that's changed?
- stdbrouw 9y ago
  The newspapers haven't but some of their journalists certainly have, through (now defunct) platforms like spot.us or even just Kickstarter. The way I see it, working as a data journalist, the problem is that you never know beforehand what will turn up and "we will spend three months investigating this thing and who knows, maybe something interesting will turn up or maybe nothing at all" is not something you can easily get people excited about.
- klmr 9y ago
  Yes, there’s a German platform that did this fairly successfully: Krautreporter [1] (the article mentions that they were in turn inspired by a Dutch magazine). I know nothing about their finances but they seem to be doing well, and have established themselves as a somewhat niche but serious competitor. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krautreporter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krautreporter
- muro 9y ago
  Don't opinion pieces work like that?
- smingo 9y ago
  There is https://www.wikitribune.com/ https://www.wikitribune.com/ which is supported both through subscriptions and donations. It's early days for Jimbo Wales's latest venture.
- mfsch 9y ago
  There are also “De Correspondent” [1] in the Netherlands, which inspired “Krautreporter” [2] in Germany and “Republik” [3] in Switzerland. Both De Correspondent and Republik set new records for crowd-funding in journalism, with the latter raising on the order of 3.5M USD. These projects used crowd-funding as initial funding though, and not for individual stories. Their ongoing financing is based on paid subscriptions. [1] https://decorrespondent.nl/ https://decorrespondent.nl/ [2] https://krautreporter.de/ https://krautreporter.de/ [3] https://www.republik.ch/ https://www.republik.ch/
alva 9y ago
Important to note that the Guardian is not actually financially successful at all. They have been suffering heavy losses for years http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/02/01/heavy-losses-feared-guardian-forecasts-will-burn-90m-cash-year/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/02/01/heavy-losses-...
- dtf 9y ago
  Things have got a little better since Viner stepped in. Good take on the state of newspapers, and the particular success of the FT, from ex-editor of Guardian Peter Preston. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/nov/26/financial-times-glimpsing-pink-new-dawn-digital https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/nov/26/financial-time...
- gadders 9y ago
  They also make use of offshore tax structures to minimise their taxes, such as the £302m profit from selling Auto Trader magazine. https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/04/will-the-guardian-now-investigate-its-own-tax-arrangements/ https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/04/will-the-guardian-now-...
  - walshemj 9y ago
    Yes some what ironic given there role in the paradise papers etc newspapers and the media are always do what I say not what I or my owner does
    - tclancy 9y ago
      For most papers, I'd say it's safe to assume the editorial staff do not make financial decisions.
      - vixen99 9y ago
        What they (the finance department) do (minimization of their tax bill) is legal and sensible and necessary for the paper's survival. If it were not and this was known to the staff, it would be no excuse morally or legally to say that the staff 'don't make these decisions'.
te_chris 9y ago
Also worth noting: Jimmy Wales is on the Guardian's board.
- currysoup_t 9y ago
  Not since April of this year.

aleph_naught 9y ago

I really like the wikipedia model, but I know it wouldnt work for every outlet. I’ve contributed more to public radio and wikipedia than any other news service subscription. Ideally, nytimes/wapo/economist would be completely open, and one would be able to ‘donate’ with a single press of the apple pay button. I prefer that over yet another username password combo + subscription + app echo system I need to maintain. Or best of both worlds: single click of apple pay button sets a cookie for 30 days of access; sends a courtesy reactivation email with a link in case you clear your cookies.

Pxtl 9y ago
The big worry is that this doesn't work for local news at all. The nitty gritty details of governance happen at the local level - municipal and state/provincial legislatures. Journalism on that stuff doesn't scale.
- inetknght 9y ago
  Where's the proof that it doesn't scale to local level?
- disantlor 9y ago
  but local ads on local content are legitimately useful and the only type of display ad i’ve ever clicked on.
- bondolo 9y ago
  It is working in my community. http://www.berkeleyside.com/ http://www.berkeleyside.com/ has run a (very modest) profit for the last two years and continued to expand. Their focus is the greater Berkeley area; a population of about 350,000. It is a more educated and well-off population than national averages. The revenue split is 65-35% between supporters and advertising. They've also recently done a direct public offering of stock allowing for $800K in investment. Local news, supported locally is possible.
  - eropple 9y ago
    Berkeley is profoundly out of the norm for American communities. Berkeley has money. Other places don't. This problem is not solved by the way things work where the money flows freely. Berkeley has 350,000 people in it. It's also eighteen square miles in size. The entire Portland-South Portland-Biddeford MSA in Maine is about half a million people and it's two thousand square miles in size. And it certainly wouldn't in my hometown in the Lakes Region of Maine, with a population across four towns in the school district of about 15,000 people across a little under two hundred square miles. The problem devolves to income inequality and the unsustainable nature of community-driven efforts because of it--nobody can afford it!
- bogomipz 9y ago
  Why are they mutually exclusive? Newspapers have always had a local section.
- Spivak 9y ago
  But it doesn't need to scale. It needs to be as big as the area it services.
  - eponeponepon 9y ago
    Hubris can be a powerful motive force. You get as big as the area you service, you think "I could do more than this", you get bigger, you service a larger area, you think "hey, is this enough..?" - and before you know it, the Manchester Guardian is a worldwide media company.
- menssen 9y ago
  Arguably it works better. Minnesota Public Radio has 127,000 members [wikipedia], which is a bit over 2% of the population of MN. They do a far better job covering stuff like city politics than any other news organization in town. The Guardian has 300,000 members [this article], which is 0.4% of the population of the UK. (And arguably, the better denominator would be the entire anglophone world.)
jimnotgym 9y ago
The Guardian was so like the Wikipedia model that Jimmy Wales was a board member of the trust. I would add a link to his wiki entry but it seems a bit recursive

icc97 9y ago

Indeed, here's the relevant CEO quote in the article: > "We recognize we have to get more direct-to-consumer revenue over time, and the way we will do that is through membership-type propositions, but it’s going to be much more than a paywall. A paywall is to me an inverse loyalty scheme, where the more you consume the more you pay, which doesn’t seem to work."

allengeorge 9y ago
What if you pay as you consume up to a maximum? That would transition repeat users into, in effect, subscribers.

harryf 9y ago

> The Guardian way looks more like the Wikipedia one Have any newspapers experimented with crowd-funding stories? This Niemanlabs report suggests none of the big names had as of Sept 2016 - http://niemanreports.org/articles/crowdfunding-the-news/ http://niemanreports.org/articles/crowdfunding-the-news/ - wonder if that's changed?

stdbrouw 9y ago
The newspapers haven't but some of their journalists certainly have, through (now defunct) platforms like spot.us or even just Kickstarter. The way I see it, working as a data journalist, the problem is that you never know beforehand what will turn up and "we will spend three months investigating this thing and who knows, maybe something interesting will turn up or maybe nothing at all" is not something you can easily get people excited about.
klmr 9y ago
Yes, there’s a German platform that did this fairly successfully: Krautreporter [1] (the article mentions that they were in turn inspired by a Dutch magazine). I know nothing about their finances but they seem to be doing well, and have established themselves as a somewhat niche but serious competitor. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krautreporter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krautreporter
muro 9y ago
Don't opinion pieces work like that?
smingo 9y ago
There is https://www.wikitribune.com/ https://www.wikitribune.com/ which is supported both through subscriptions and donations. It's early days for Jimbo Wales's latest venture.
mfsch 9y ago
There are also “De Correspondent” [1] in the Netherlands, which inspired “Krautreporter” [2] in Germany and “Republik” [3] in Switzerland. Both De Correspondent and Republik set new records for crowd-funding in journalism, with the latter raising on the order of 3.5M USD. These projects used crowd-funding as initial funding though, and not for individual stories. Their ongoing financing is based on paid subscriptions. [1] https://decorrespondent.nl/ https://decorrespondent.nl/ [2] https://krautreporter.de/ https://krautreporter.de/ [3] https://www.republik.ch/ https://www.republik.ch/

alva 9y ago

Important to note that the Guardian is not actually financially successful at all. They have been suffering heavy losses for years http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/02/01/heavy-losses-feared-guardian-forecasts-will-burn-90m-cash-year/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/02/01/heavy-losses-...

dtf 9y ago
Things have got a little better since Viner stepped in. Good take on the state of newspapers, and the particular success of the FT, from ex-editor of Guardian Peter Preston. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/nov/26/financial-times-glimpsing-pink-new-dawn-digital https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/nov/26/financial-time...
gadders 9y ago
They also make use of offshore tax structures to minimise their taxes, such as the £302m profit from selling Auto Trader magazine. https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/04/will-the-guardian-now-investigate-its-own-tax-arrangements/ https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/04/will-the-guardian-now-...
- walshemj 9y ago
  Yes some what ironic given there role in the paradise papers etc newspapers and the media are always do what I say not what I or my owner does
  - tclancy 9y ago
    For most papers, I'd say it's safe to assume the editorial staff do not make financial decisions.
    - vixen99 9y ago
      What they (the finance department) do (minimization of their tax bill) is legal and sensible and necessary for the paper's survival. If it were not and this was known to the staff, it would be no excuse morally or legally to say that the staff 'don't make these decisions'.

te_chris 9y ago

Also worth noting: Jimmy Wales is on the Guardian's board.

currysoup_t 9y ago
Not since April of this year.