4 ms·

There's no law. I work at a newspaper. We are digitally aware and head towards a digital distribution. That means infrastructural changes and that costs mone

There's no law. I work at a newspaper. We are digitally aware and head towards a digital distribution. That means infrastructural changes and that costs money. Those advertisers pay the bills. They provide the means for us to reach you. Subscription models are (currently) not enough. I'm not trying to guilt anyone into anything but this will be a an interesting field to watch in the coming years. How will journalism fund itself and maintain some semblance of integrity? If the ad revenues fall it will be a bumpy ride indeed.

learnstats2 12y ago
With respect, this is great for me. I would like to read articles that haven't been self-censored to keep potential advertisers happy. For me, journalism needs to figure out other funding models to regain some semblance of integrity.
- jamespo 12y ago
  More Buzzfeed & more advertorials.
- Beltiras 12y ago
  Funding comes from 3 sources: Owners, advertisers and the public (either as donationware or subscription fees). Each one comes with a set of challenges. Owners tend to exert some sort of editorial control, making the coverage slanted towards their end-goal. Advertisers tend to be unpalatable to the reader, sometimes editorial control is a problem but that sometimes means there's an editorial problem (advertisers stop using a paper due to consumer pressure). Subscription means your content is not as widely distributed as it could be. Yes we want to get paid but primarily journalists are in it to be read. Getting that many people to part with money is also a hard problem when compared to the other two sources.
chii 12y ago
> How will journalism fund itself and maintain some semblance of integrity? i suspect journalists can do that by asking for a larger subscription. If society truly values the work of journalists, instead of it being a conduit for advertising, then it will be paid accordingly. If not, then, yes, it's a shame, but it really means that nobody values the work of a true journalist (especially investigative journalism), and it will die out. But that's reality, as sad as it would be if it were to be true.
- Beltiras 12y ago
  I find your fatalism disheartening. Aren't good things worth fighting for? Shouldn't people care?
  - mrec 12y ago
    I think conflating "viewing ads" with "fighting for good things" is going a little far. Grandparent isn't against people caring, and specifically mentioned the possibility of showing that via higher subscriptions.
    - Beltiras 12y ago
      I didn't intend that to be a statement about the virtue of ads.
  - pXMzR2A 12y ago
    >> yes, it's a shame, but it really means that nobody values the work of a true journalist (especially investigative journalism) > I find your fatalism disheartening. It's not fatalism but rather a political statement. OP argues from within the superficial logic of capitalist exchange: the value of a commodity is whether and for how much it sells. Uninterestingly enough, the thing which the OP will not be sad to kill is investigative journalism, which is pretty much the only branch of intellectual work that can undo the corruption that is brought on by the above psychotic logic. What you think is fatalism is actually poorly disguised pro-corruption propaganda.
davidovitch 12y ago
In the December 2014 issue of Le Monde diplomatique there is an interesting article that investigates future possible press models within the French context: http://mondediplo.com/2014/12/13press http://mondediplo.com/2014/12/13press (in English, but behind a pay wall). The authors argue that for public interest press (news, investigative journalism, etc), a shared publication and distribution institute/company should be funded by the government. In that way, the magazines/newspapers/whatever only have to finance the costs of the journalists and editors. Publication costs are carried by this joint/shared open publisher. The article is focussed on the French situation, and stresses that the government already hands out a yearly €1.6bn subsidy to the press, and end with concluding that funding a joint open publication institute will not be that much different money-wise compared to the current situation.
- Beltiras 12y ago
  I agree that journalism is a public good. Having the government fund it sends shivers through my spine. Recently where I live the public broadcasting corp. was threatened with cutbacks due to a perceived slant in coverage. The threats were then carried out after the politician in question was given chairmanship of the parliamentary committee on the budget. That to me is so troublesome I don't consider it viable.
  - davidovitch 12y ago
    I guess this discussion is way off-topic at this point :-) But I find it interesting enough to keep it going. The real challenge is obviously to have this government funded publication company stay free of direct government interference. The article mentions a sort of tax that is levied before the wage is paid out, and should be delivered directly to the join publication house. Much in the same way as some European social security contributions are collected today. That would keep the funding away from the yearly government budgeting rounds. No matter what system we think of, the powers at be will always try to influence the press and information. We can also see that in the current system, where large stakeholders can pressure/influence journalists and publications. I don't think the state has a monopoly here, on the contrary.
colechristensen 12y ago
It seems like if you're interested in making money online with advertising with "journalism" there's strong pressure to turn yourself into BuzzFeed.... that is, low effort, cheap tricks, information pornography.
- Beltiras 12y ago
  No, I am genuinely interested in how to fund real journalism. How do we go about getting money for people to expose the aggregation of wealth and power against the interests of the plebeians. (note: plebeians is used here not as a derogatory)
  - colechristensen 12y ago
    To fund real journalism for the filthy peasants you need to seek public and private funding for an endowment (not direct operational funding) combined with a small amount of tasteful advertising and merchandising, subscription fees, and a policy of graduating content to public domain after a certain short period (a few months and not much more). Merchandising could be prints of artwork, cartoons, expanded versions of articles or source materials as well as branded things like coffee mugs. The key is being lean to start and developing an endowment so you don't always have to be seeking dollars (NPR fund drives bad). Offer high value, medium to high priced merchandise, keep your journalistic standards high with a low supply of advertising (keeping demand high). Endowment contributors will be motivated by a history of quality journalism and the fact that you open your content to the public after a certain reasonably short time. If you give people a way to buy it without abusing DRM or being otherwise obnoxious, people will pay.
  - tim333 12y ago
    I'm not sure most of the people exposing the aggregation of wealth and power against the interests of the plebeians are doing it for the money and would probably do it even if unpaid. Though for what it's worth the main guy I read doing that, Krugman, get's paid pretty well by the NYT which makes money from subscriptions which works because some people are willing to pay. For anyone unfamiliar with Krugman here's an example: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/15/opinion/paul-krugman-dodd-frank-damaged-by-the-budget-bill.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/15/opinion/paul-krugman-dodd-...
AdmiralAsshat 12y ago
So this is a slight digress, but while we're on the subject, how does an advertiser know that an ad has been successfully served or blocked? I've never had that part fully explained to me. If they're just basing it on number of adds clicks, I rather doubt whether I use an ad blocker or not makes much difference, because I can more or less guarantee that in the ~18 years I have actively surfed the web, the number of ad links I have consciously clicked is between 0 and 5. So I assume, then, that they have some way of tracking whether the ad was presented to the end-user?
- tim333 12y ago
  Not my expertise but to show an ad there is usually a request to the server to send the graphics or similar so I guess they could track if that happens. Not sure if they do in practice. Occasionally a website notices I have an adblocker and moans at me or warns that it may mess up the functionality.
- hullo 12y ago
  Ad servers keep track of the number of times the graphic (or other asset) for a particular campaign was served. Lots of other "pixels" also get bundled into the calls depending on what kinds of ad tech the advertiser, publisher, or middlemen are running. How many people (living, breathing, checkbook-possessing people) actually see an ad is an entirely different question from how many it is served to, and there is (of course) a whole 'nother area of ad tech companies working in that space.

learnstats2 12y ago

With respect, this is great for me. I would like to read articles that haven't been self-censored to keep potential advertisers happy. For me, journalism needs to figure out other funding models to regain some semblance of integrity.

jamespo 12y ago
More Buzzfeed & more advertorials.
Beltiras 12y ago
Funding comes from 3 sources: Owners, advertisers and the public (either as donationware or subscription fees). Each one comes with a set of challenges. Owners tend to exert some sort of editorial control, making the coverage slanted towards their end-goal. Advertisers tend to be unpalatable to the reader, sometimes editorial control is a problem but that sometimes means there's an editorial problem (advertisers stop using a paper due to consumer pressure). Subscription means your content is not as widely distributed as it could be. Yes we want to get paid but primarily journalists are in it to be read. Getting that many people to part with money is also a hard problem when compared to the other two sources.

chii 12y ago

> How will journalism fund itself and maintain some semblance of integrity? i suspect journalists can do that by asking for a larger subscription. If society truly values the work of journalists, instead of it being a conduit for advertising, then it will be paid accordingly. If not, then, yes, it's a shame, but it really means that nobody values the work of a true journalist (especially investigative journalism), and it will die out. But that's reality, as sad as it would be if it were to be true.

Beltiras 12y ago
I find your fatalism disheartening. Aren't good things worth fighting for? Shouldn't people care?
- mrec 12y ago
  I think conflating "viewing ads" with "fighting for good things" is going a little far. Grandparent isn't against people caring, and specifically mentioned the possibility of showing that via higher subscriptions.
  - Beltiras 12y ago
    I didn't intend that to be a statement about the virtue of ads.
- pXMzR2A 12y ago
  >> yes, it's a shame, but it really means that nobody values the work of a true journalist (especially investigative journalism) > I find your fatalism disheartening. It's not fatalism but rather a political statement. OP argues from within the superficial logic of capitalist exchange: the value of a commodity is whether and for how much it sells. Uninterestingly enough, the thing which the OP will not be sad to kill is investigative journalism, which is pretty much the only branch of intellectual work that can undo the corruption that is brought on by the above psychotic logic. What you think is fatalism is actually poorly disguised pro-corruption propaganda.

davidovitch 12y ago

In the December 2014 issue of Le Monde diplomatique there is an interesting article that investigates future possible press models within the French context: http://mondediplo.com/2014/12/13press http://mondediplo.com/2014/12/13press (in English, but behind a pay wall). The authors argue that for public interest press (news, investigative journalism, etc), a shared publication and distribution institute/company should be funded by the government. In that way, the magazines/newspapers/whatever only have to finance the costs of the journalists and editors. Publication costs are carried by this joint/shared open publisher. The article is focussed on the French situation, and stresses that the government already hands out a yearly €1.6bn subsidy to the press, and end with concluding that funding a joint open publication institute will not be that much different money-wise compared to the current situation.

Beltiras 12y ago
I agree that journalism is a public good. Having the government fund it sends shivers through my spine. Recently where I live the public broadcasting corp. was threatened with cutbacks due to a perceived slant in coverage. The threats were then carried out after the politician in question was given chairmanship of the parliamentary committee on the budget. That to me is so troublesome I don't consider it viable.
- davidovitch 12y ago
  I guess this discussion is way off-topic at this point :-) But I find it interesting enough to keep it going. The real challenge is obviously to have this government funded publication company stay free of direct government interference. The article mentions a sort of tax that is levied before the wage is paid out, and should be delivered directly to the join publication house. Much in the same way as some European social security contributions are collected today. That would keep the funding away from the yearly government budgeting rounds. No matter what system we think of, the powers at be will always try to influence the press and information. We can also see that in the current system, where large stakeholders can pressure/influence journalists and publications. I don't think the state has a monopoly here, on the contrary.

colechristensen 12y ago

It seems like if you're interested in making money online with advertising with "journalism" there's strong pressure to turn yourself into BuzzFeed.... that is, low effort, cheap tricks, information pornography.

Beltiras 12y ago
No, I am genuinely interested in how to fund real journalism. How do we go about getting money for people to expose the aggregation of wealth and power against the interests of the plebeians. (note: plebeians is used here not as a derogatory)
- colechristensen 12y ago
  To fund real journalism for the filthy peasants you need to seek public and private funding for an endowment (not direct operational funding) combined with a small amount of tasteful advertising and merchandising, subscription fees, and a policy of graduating content to public domain after a certain short period (a few months and not much more). Merchandising could be prints of artwork, cartoons, expanded versions of articles or source materials as well as branded things like coffee mugs. The key is being lean to start and developing an endowment so you don't always have to be seeking dollars (NPR fund drives bad). Offer high value, medium to high priced merchandise, keep your journalistic standards high with a low supply of advertising (keeping demand high). Endowment contributors will be motivated by a history of quality journalism and the fact that you open your content to the public after a certain reasonably short time. If you give people a way to buy it without abusing DRM or being otherwise obnoxious, people will pay.
- tim333 12y ago
  I'm not sure most of the people exposing the aggregation of wealth and power against the interests of the plebeians are doing it for the money and would probably do it even if unpaid. Though for what it's worth the main guy I read doing that, Krugman, get's paid pretty well by the NYT which makes money from subscriptions which works because some people are willing to pay. For anyone unfamiliar with Krugman here's an example: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/15/opinion/paul-krugman-dodd-frank-damaged-by-the-budget-bill.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/15/opinion/paul-krugman-dodd-...

AdmiralAsshat 12y ago

So this is a slight digress, but while we're on the subject, how does an advertiser know that an ad has been successfully served or blocked? I've never had that part fully explained to me. If they're just basing it on number of adds clicks, I rather doubt whether I use an ad blocker or not makes much difference, because I can more or less guarantee that in the ~18 years I have actively surfed the web, the number of ad links I have consciously clicked is between 0 and 5. So I assume, then, that they have some way of tracking whether the ad was presented to the end-user?

tim333 12y ago
Not my expertise but to show an ad there is usually a request to the server to send the graphics or similar so I guess they could track if that happens. Not sure if they do in practice. Occasionally a website notices I have an adblocker and moans at me or warns that it may mess up the functionality.
hullo 12y ago
Ad servers keep track of the number of times the graphic (or other asset) for a particular campaign was served. Lots of other "pixels" also get bundled into the calls depending on what kinds of ad tech the advertiser, publisher, or middlemen are running. How many people (living, breathing, checkbook-possessing people) actually see an ad is an entirely different question from how many it is served to, and there is (of course) a whole 'nother area of ad tech companies working in that space.