4 ms·

Nate Silver on the Times Pay Model and the Economics of Reporting

20 points by robg 16y ago

mixmax 16y ago
Another perspective is that the way news sources and gathering is changing. Nate looks at the number of citations and draws some good conclusions - but I think he misses something important. News aggregators, such as YC and Reddit sometimes link stories from New York Times, Bloomberg and Al Jazeera, but at any one time one of the big news outlets will be a small minority on the frontpage. Most of the content comes from blogs, smaller sites, comments somewhere and specific sites associated with a news event. For instance, the recent nuclear disaster has been covered here on HN, but the links are often to sites that are somewhat specific to the event in questions. In this case sites like worldnuclearnews.org (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2348824 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2348824) and theenergycollective (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2317356 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2317356). Chances are that I will never visit these sites again, but for this one event they were indespensible. If there was a biological terrorist attack in Copenhagen next week there's a good chance that The Copenhagen Post (http://www.cphpost.dk/ http://www.cphpost.dk/) would make the frontpage of both Reddit and HN, but in there is not it won't. It's only an interesting source for very specific events. The Internet is changing news, and I don't think Nate's analysis takes that into consideration, small sites won't show up in his analysis since they're typically only quoted in relation to one story. Because of News aggregators I don't get much of my news from the traditional outlets - I get it from experts on the particular piece of news I'm reading about. That expert may be wikipedia, it may be worldnuclearnews or it may be The copenhagen Post. The important thing is instead of getting a lot of my news from one source I get it from all over the place depending on what's happening in the world. Besides I've often seen big news organizations pinch stories from Reddit without any attribution.
SoftwareMaven 16y ago
I hope the NYT is successful with this model. It is extremely close to "pay if you think it is worth it", given the number of loop holes, which I would love to see a major precidence for.
- eli 16y ago
  Not really. There's no way to pay less than $15/month unless you pay nothing. It's just a hunch, but I think most Times readers believe the website is worth somewhere between nothing and $15.
  - tsotha 16y ago
    This. I don't care how they try to justify it. Only a handful of people are going to pay $500/yr for a single website.
    - mhb 16y ago
      $15 x 13 = $195. How do you get $500/yr?
      - waterside81 16y ago
        I think he's including the cost of accessing the NYT across all platforms (iPhone, iPad, web, print).
  - heroprotagonist 16y ago
    It's interesting to look at their valuation of the website access. Right now they don't offer a website-only plan. All Digital Access (Website + Tablet app + Phone app) = $35/month or $420 / year Website + Tablet app = $20/month or $240 / year Website + Phone apps = $15/month or $180 / year There is no discount for All Digital Access when compared to either of the application plans. Once you are on one of the plans, the upgrade path is unconscionable.. $240/year or $180/year for use of an additional native mobile app? It seems they either value website access at $0 or subscribers are paying for website access twice. It's more interesting when you compare home delivery options. Home delivery includes All Digital Access as a bonus. The cheapest home delivery (Monday to Friday) is $6.20 per week without any introductory rate or special offer. This works out to $322.40 per year (52 weeks) or $26.87/month (4.33 weeks per month). This suggests that if you want access to the website plus both the phone app and the tablet app, you'd be better off buying home delivery and throwing out the paper.
jgamman 16y ago
the problem with news as i see it is that being slightly above average most of the time was useful until ubiquitous publishing/access was possible. even very good reporters can't compete against a single story written by an expert in the field. even cutting it down to the 1% of experts that can write for a lay audience. news will increasingly become the search and deploy function of finding what's current and collecting the bespoke in-depth reporting needed on an ad-hoc basis. money will slosh around as needed.

20 points by robg 16y ago

Another perspective is that the way news sources and gathering is changing. Nate looks at the number of citations and draws some good conclusions - but I think he misses something important. News aggregators, such as YC and Reddit sometimes link stories from New York Times, Bloomberg and Al Jazeera, but at any one time one of the big news outlets will be a small minority on the frontpage. Most of the content comes from blogs, smaller sites, comments somewhere and specific sites associated with a news event. For instance, the recent nuclear disaster has been covered here on HN, but the links are often to sites that are somewhat specific to the event in questions. In this case sites like worldnuclearnews.org (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2348824 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2348824) and theenergycollective (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2317356 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2317356). Chances are that I will never visit these sites again, but for this one event they were indespensible. If there was a biological terrorist attack in Copenhagen next week there's a good chance that The Copenhagen Post (http://www.cphpost.dk/ http://www.cphpost.dk/) would make the frontpage of both Reddit and HN, but in there is not it won't. It's only an interesting source for very specific events. The Internet is changing news, and I don't think Nate's analysis takes that into consideration, small sites won't show up in his analysis since they're typically only quoted in relation to one story. Because of News aggregators I don't get much of my news from the traditional outlets - I get it from experts on the particular piece of news I'm reading about. That expert may be wikipedia, it may be worldnuclearnews or it may be The copenhagen Post. The important thing is instead of getting a lot of my news from one source I get it from all over the place depending on what's happening in the world. Besides I've often seen big news organizations pinch stories from Reddit without any attribution.

SoftwareMaven 16y ago

I hope the NYT is successful with this model. It is extremely close to "pay if you think it is worth it", given the number of loop holes, which I would love to see a major precidence for.

eli 16y ago
Not really. There's no way to pay less than $15/month unless you pay nothing. It's just a hunch, but I think most Times readers believe the website is worth somewhere between nothing and $15.
- tsotha 16y ago
  This. I don't care how they try to justify it. Only a handful of people are going to pay $500/yr for a single website.
  - mhb 16y ago
    $15 x 13 = $195. How do you get $500/yr?
    - waterside81 16y ago
      I think he's including the cost of accessing the NYT across all platforms (iPhone, iPad, web, print).
- heroprotagonist 16y ago
  It's interesting to look at their valuation of the website access. Right now they don't offer a website-only plan. All Digital Access (Website + Tablet app + Phone app) = $35/month or $420 / year Website + Tablet app = $20/month or $240 / year Website + Phone apps = $15/month or $180 / year There is no discount for All Digital Access when compared to either of the application plans. Once you are on one of the plans, the upgrade path is unconscionable.. $240/year or $180/year for use of an additional native mobile app? It seems they either value website access at $0 or subscribers are paying for website access twice. It's more interesting when you compare home delivery options. Home delivery includes All Digital Access as a bonus. The cheapest home delivery (Monday to Friday) is $6.20 per week without any introductory rate or special offer. This works out to $322.40 per year (52 weeks) or $26.87/month (4.33 weeks per month). This suggests that if you want access to the website plus both the phone app and the tablet app, you'd be better off buying home delivery and throwing out the paper.

jgamman 16y ago

the problem with news as i see it is that being slightly above average most of the time was useful until ubiquitous publishing/access was possible. even very good reporters can't compete against a single story written by an expert in the field. even cutting it down to the 1% of experts that can write for a lay audience. news will increasingly become the search and deploy function of finding what's current and collecting the bespoke in-depth reporting needed on an ad-hoc basis. money will slosh around as needed.