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I think you just hit on the the biggest threat to journalism right now -- how to you quantify the value of the reporting to the reader. Financial news outlets

I think you just hit on the the biggest threat to journalism right now -- how to you quantify the value of the reporting to the reader. Financial news outlets have long been successful at this -- Bloomberg, CNBC, Wall Street Journal, etc. They are able to build strong businesses with a relatively small audience often because that audience is willing to pay large sums of money for access. (Bloomberg Terminals reportedly cost up to $25k/yr! https://www.bluegamma.io/post/bloomberg-terminal-pricing#:~:text=How%20much%20does%20Bloomberg%20Terminal,the%20market%20data%20platform%20spectrum.) https://www.bluegamma.io/post/bloomberg-terminal-pricing#:~:... Still -- how much value do you get from the Washington Post? How much value do you get from knowing about the inner workings of your government? Federal, state, municipal, any of them? Does being a better citizen have a financial incentive? Can you put a price on knowing about the situation in Ukraine, or Gaza, or even the dangerous intersection downtown? And without that, how do you justify payment for journalism, which itself is expensive? Or is the answer that the payment comes from people who want to push a narrative, or control the conversation? Is there a monetary value to preventing that?

bobthepanda 2y ago
It used to be ads; before the Internet there was limited advertising space that reached lots of people, so papers could fund themselves with their wide distribution even in the face of competition from TV. Of course, the Internet blew that wide open. A couple of places have tried diversifying content towards what readers will pay for; NYT has done probably the best job with the branching out towards cooking, Wirecutter, etc. that people do want to pay for. Buzzfeed attempted to do the same for clickbait to fund real journalism but that fizzled out.
- jaredwiener 2y ago
  Advertising is a monetization strategy. I'm asking how do you quantify the underlying value. As a consumer of news, how am I richer now than I was before reading? And is it possible to put a number on it?
  - bobthepanda 2y ago
    If you consume listicles and you like them that's value enough. (Buzzfeed) If you enjoy crosswords, new recipes, or product reviews, that also has some value people are willing to pay for. (NYT) Historically, journalism has mostly been finding out about what cross-subsidy works, whether that's real estate, sports, scandalous gossip, etc. that people will actually pay for. There isn't a whole lot of people paying for just the main stories for the news.
    - jaredwiener 2y ago
      Thats kind of my point. The people who have figured out that value, i.e. Bloomberg, WSJ, Politico Pro, etc -- charge for the value. The ones that haven't are the ones figuring out other monetization strategies.

bobthepanda 2y ago

It used to be ads; before the Internet there was limited advertising space that reached lots of people, so papers could fund themselves with their wide distribution even in the face of competition from TV. Of course, the Internet blew that wide open. A couple of places have tried diversifying content towards what readers will pay for; NYT has done probably the best job with the branching out towards cooking, Wirecutter, etc. that people do want to pay for. Buzzfeed attempted to do the same for clickbait to fund real journalism but that fizzled out.

jaredwiener 2y ago
Advertising is a monetization strategy. I'm asking how do you quantify the underlying value. As a consumer of news, how am I richer now than I was before reading? And is it possible to put a number on it?
- bobthepanda 2y ago
  If you consume listicles and you like them that's value enough. (Buzzfeed) If you enjoy crosswords, new recipes, or product reviews, that also has some value people are willing to pay for. (NYT) Historically, journalism has mostly been finding out about what cross-subsidy works, whether that's real estate, sports, scandalous gossip, etc. that people will actually pay for. There isn't a whole lot of people paying for just the main stories for the news.
  - jaredwiener 2y ago
    Thats kind of my point. The people who have figured out that value, i.e. Bloomberg, WSJ, Politico Pro, etc -- charge for the value. The ones that haven't are the ones figuring out other monetization strategies.