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Wired is dropping paywalls for FOIA-based reporting. Others should follow
- johnshades 2y ago404 media was doing this b4 it was 'wired' :}
- MrMcCall 2y agoThey have been doing really impressive work for some years now. "There's God's side and the other side." --Katt Williams
- davidw 2y agoAmong many other things that are seeing titanic shifts right now is the media landscape. Wired has been doing some excellent reporting on a lot of recent events while you have storied outfits like the Washington Post muzzled by their owner.
- inquirerGeneral 2y ago[dead]
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> while you have storied outfits like the Washington Post muzzled by their owner I guess it shouldn't still be surprising that a joint-stock company with diverse owners outperforms a closely-held company again, but here I am, genuinely surprised. (I previously thought a rich patron could stand up to power. But Kay Graham was special. Bezos is another coward.)
- vkou 2y agoA rich patron can stand up to power when power plays by the rules. This regime does not. It is above the law. If you're interested in the endgame of this sort of thing, just look at Russia. No shortage of rich people there, but not a lot of them interested in pushing back.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> A rich patron can stand up to power when power plays by the rules A rich person has power. That means getting to set your own rules, to an extent. Bezos could have challenged Trump, or at least drawn a line in the sand around press freedom and democratic institutions. He didn't. None of them did. I don't know to whom we rotate power, but it's clear that there needs to be a dilution of it from Silicon Valley.
- vkou 2y ago> Bezos could have challenged Trump I don't think we're in disagreement. But that window closed last November, and we're a bit past that.
- davidw 2y agoNo, we're not. I was out at a protest this evening with ordinary Americans who have far less wealth and power than Bezos, and they're out there doing what they can. There's a lot he could still be doing. What's the worst that can happen to him? He flees the country and never has to work a day for the rest of his life that he could live in luxury?
- mmooss 2y agoOther news sources are challenging Trump, and with far less resources than Bezos.
- mmooss 2y ago> Kay Graham was special Every major journalism boss until recently shared and stood up for the same values (except Murdoch): CBS, NBC, ABC, NYT, Wash Post, CNN, Gannett, your major local newspaper probably, ... We need to stop thinking of it as special and go back to making it a norm. Then publications who do what the WP is doing will suffer consequences. People have become quickly accustomed to corruption.
- dehrmann 2y agoDo you think the Newhouses are more reliable owners than Bezos? And they might be. Journalism is their business. If Bezos had to choose between Amazon and WaPo, he'd choose Amazon.
- xori 2y agoWell they aren't in Canada for me yet, but that's probably because we aren't the public that needs to know.
- richwater 2y ago> And yes, publishers rely on subscriptions to cover those costs — which will only increase as a result of anti-press attacks by the Trump administration. [citation needed]. I wonder how many people browse the Internet with an ad blocker while simultaneously calling for paywalled news content to be free? It's quite the entitlement to say that organizations should forgo revenue when, if people actually cared, they could easily replace 1 of 10 streaming subscriptions with a newspaper/journalism subscription. This article is backed with no data beyond just shaming organizations for not fulfilling what freedom.press defines as "civic duty".
- dgfitz 2y agoA website partially dropped their paywall, and they attribute blame. The hell do I care? Now I can read parts of their website without archive hacks.
- watwut 2y agoI get your argument, but people I know in real life do not have 10 streaming subscriptions. Most people I know have 1 or 2.
- richwater 2y agoWhile 10 is certainly an exaggeration, I think the core thesis of "most consumers just don't value quality journalism and thus spend their money elsewhere" is valid.
- KolmogorovComp 2y ago> Some may argue that, from a business standpoint, not charging for stories primarily relying on public records automatically means fewer subscriptions and therefore less revenue (…) > while some readers might not subscribe to outlets that give away some of their best journalism for free, *it’s just as possible that readers will recognize this sacrifice* and reward these outlets with more traffic and subscriptions in the long run. (emphasis is mine) Not, the outcimes are not as likely. This is the same argument that switching to foss and donation-based model would not result in income-loss compared to traditional business model. We know from experience it does not financially work for a (very) large majority of products. I laud Wired’s initiative but I hope they have considered it as a net-loss of income.
- jampekka 2y agoMost major subscription newspapers in Finland have a model where "important" news articles are free but for feature stories and such a subscription is needed. Having specific articles free would be something similar. The free news articles are not out of the goodness of the shareholders. Most newspapers (Wired included) run ads, and still get ad revenue from the free stories and with them get to somewhat compete with fully ad funded alternatives.
- stereolambda 2y agoI wonder how many subscriptions are bought for outlets which have no outside-internet recognition or freely accessible content, where all you can see is a paywall. If I'm gonna subscribe to your magazine, the main things I want to know is quality of reporting and if I can cancel without hassle (due to tactics sadly employed by some titles). I will not just believe you have good stories if I can't see them. This is not the level of trust we give nowadays. And magazine and newspaper subscriptions are not some pressing need that I can't forgo. For some of these I could just buy one paper issue to try out (technically even for foreign titles), but otherwise how would I know. And no, with a book I would buy, I know I can expect some level of quality because of the publisher, and I can read what it is about in the backcover. Worst case scenario, I get 250 pages of poor entertainment to read when very bored in a train. It's not the same with getting access to someone's sorry content farm.
- xnx 2y agoI'm surprised FOIA hasn't been "deleted" yet.
- ale42 2y agoI'm pretty sure they already thought about it. By the way, the FOIA process certainly has a cost which needs to be optimized out...
- Kapura 2y agoWhat are you suggesting?
- jancsika 2y ago> By the way, the FOIA process certainly has a cost which needs to be optimized out... Meaning 1: Republicans might very well try to get rid of a democratic check on power under the cover of "reducing waste" and that is bad and I don't want it to happen. Meaning 2: I believe the government works essentially like a compiler and therefore optimizing out anything in the name of efficiency is actually a "good thing." I can't follow the "be generous" rule of HN because I cannot tell from your comment which one you mean. Could you clarify? Edit: maybe more important-- I'm not sure which interpretation HN would take to be generous here.
- mnkv 2y agoI think it's pretty obvious it's 1. Given the recent huge, clearly politically-motivated cuts from the current administration, it feels pretty likely that FOIA could be disrupted under the guise of "cost-saving". And I think you're supposed to be generous to the commenter, not the current administration ;)
- Imnimo 2y ago>But while some readers might not subscribe to outlets that give away some of their best journalism for free, it’s just as possible that readers will recognize this sacrifice and reward these outlets with more traffic and subscriptions in the long run. I just don't see how you can think this given the trends of subscriber counts to various outlets over the last few decades.
- xhkkffbf 2y agoExactly. We should all be grateful to any journalist doing this kind of reporting. And we should reward them with money. I just don't see people doing more than paying lipservice to this idea.
- 0xCMP 2y agoTo be fair some people genuinely do subscribe for this, but it's best to think of it as a justification to do the "right thing".
- freeAgent 2y agoJust yesterday I started paying for a Tailscale subscription even though I don’t even fully utilize what they provide for free. I just find it valuable and am glad I have the option and ability to support them. I don’t think most people do things like that, but some do. We’ll definitely see how it works out for Wired (I’m already a subscriber there, too, due to great coverage/work).
- rebeccaskinner 2y agoI just subscribed. They had already been on my radar as having done some good reporting lately, and this was a good nudge to get a subscription. Along very similar lines I’m a longtime subscriber to lwn.net even though realistically I tend to catch up there every couple of months and am almost always reading content that is free by that point. I find the service they provide valuable and the subscription fee very reasonable and I’m happy to support it.
- andrewvc 2y ago> But while some readers might not subscribe to outlets that give away some of their best journalism for free, it’s just as possible that readers will recognize this sacrifice and reward these outlets with more traffic and subscriptions in the long run. In other words we have a wild guess this will be sustainable for news organizations. Stories like this are always popular on HN but I’m convinced get upvoted because people agree with the idea of more free stuff. I’m skeptical that this will improve the quality of reporting in an already under resourced journalistic environment. Maybe it’s a good idea, but it’s hardly obvious.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> it’s just as possible that readers will recognize this sacrifice and reward these outlets with more traffic and subscriptions in the long run These hybrid models don't work. Depend entirely on generosity, e.g. Wikipedia. Sell your damn product. Or sell your readers' eyeballs. I've hands down seen the best journalism from categories 1 and 2: folks focussed on the mission or confident enough in their quality to paywall everything. I've rarely seen it from 3. I've almost never seen it from those who try mixing. (The exception being those who sell traditional, i.e. non-targeted, ads.)
- radlad 2y agoThere's the other hybrid approach of depending on government funding and generosity (i.e. NPR.) Though I'm not sure that's a great option in this climate either.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> other hybrid approach of depending on government funding and generosity (i.e. NPR.) About 30%, and indirectly at that: "eligible public radio stations may apply to receive annual grants directly from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)" [1]. [1] https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finances https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finance...
- gowld 2y ago
- subsubzero 2y agoI'm fine with news outlets having paywalls to keep the lights on and provide great journalism. Where I wish things would change is having paywalls on articles years old that are no longer relevant to todays news.
- isaacremuant 2y agoI just wish that those that suddenly recognize the importance of freedom will remember next time they get their preferred government in power instead of simply pretending "freedumbs" are a partisan issue and defending authoritarianism when it suits them. I don't have much hope, though. The partisan hypocrisy and inconsistency in red and blue cuts deep.
- username4567 2y agoI have subscribed to multiple news organizations this year because I think it's important to support the type reporting they are doing right now. I don't give money to every source that is doing great investigative work but there's at least more of my money paying for news.
- rectang 2y agoThe suitable rejoinder to every tired old "somebody else's content needs to be given away" argument is the Content Creator's Creed from Goodfellas (NSFW): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c3bhh8fqYs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c3bhh8fqYs As if journalism hasn't been a shrinking industry for decades. "But surely FOIA articles are different and are the perfect loss leader". No they are not — if they were you'd make a mint researching, writing and publishing FOIA articles for free rather than insisting that others do it.
- roughly 2y agoThe original talk for that creed, a classic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U
- mmooss 2y ago> loss leader ... make a mint Maybe their goals are not to make a mint but high quality journalism , and they just need to sustain themselves.
- newsclues 2y agoInteresting. I like the idea of journalism having open data/facts, but am happy if the "story" is behind the paywall.
- jbverschoor 2y agoWell, different publication, but I subscribed a week for a single article to “follow the money“. However, I couldn’t easily unsubscribe. Same has happened to me with other too. So yeah, no more paying for articles since
- throwaway48476 2y agoI think journalists have an obligation to publish the documents received from FOIA for free but I don't see anything wrong with a paywall for the article.