The New Economics of News Journalism Principles and Practices

Economic and Editorial Models ●Impermeable paywall ●Leaky paywall ●Metered system ●Free, ad supported via lots of page views ●Free, curated network ●Free, value added ●Highly specialized, team with existing media

Economic and Editorial Models, Continued ●De-facto ad agency ●Hyperlocal ●Social-media oriented ●Community funded ●One-person operation ●Subscription

Impermeable Paywall ●Newsday ●$5 week, $260 a year. Rolled out after $4 million re-design. Subscribers during first three months” 35. ●Not reached by search….at least in part the problem faced by Times Select

Leaky Paywall ●About $150 per year. ●Some is available online, and pretty much anything can be searched for. By making available for search engines, more page views. ●WJS has seen steady growth.

Metered System ●Financial Times, read a certain amount, then pay. ●Pretty much same in NYT. Apparently in response to 19% who said they would pay more. Easier to go after those that try to extract from other sources. ●Note that Times Select was not total failure – did generate 227K subscribers and made about $1 0 million, but Times recognized future was in search

Free, Rely on Revenue from Page Views ●ChicagoNow. ●Big collection of bloggers. About 100. ●Theory, more pages, more page views. ●Here is mix of new and old media. Brand name? ●Curated

Two Approaches to Free Curated Free, Curated network: Glam Free, but value added: Footballoutsiders.com link to paid articles, own products

Highly Specialized, Sometimes Nonprofit, Teamed with Existing Media CircleofBlue.org ●Parallel with magazines in 1950s and 60s ●Editorial mission of WSJ when founded in 1889 viewed as crazy – bring market information to people ●Nonprofit, foundations ●Says it adheres to NPR, SPJ code of ethics

Highly Specialized, Sometimes Nonprofit, Teamed with Existing Media, Continued... Propublica.org ●Stories with “moral force” ●Teams with other organizations

Highly Specialized, Sometimes Nonprofit, Teamed with Existing Media, Continued... Minnpost.com ●Political reporters ●Some grant money GlobalPost ●Phil Balboni raised $8 million, ●70 journalists ●In response to increasingly global world where global coverage is cut ●Offers membership deals

Become De-Facto Ad Agency ●Palm Beach Post. ●40 million page views per month, profits up with advertising partners across multiple platforms. ●Seminars

Hyperlocal Everyblock.com ●Many cities ●News within a few hundred feet ●Aggregates data, including Craigslist, filters to location ●Raw information, not edited

Social-Media Oriented Fwix ●Aggregates blog postings ●When cursor is over, automatically provides options to send to friends on social media networks

Community Funded Spot.us ●You ID an issue ●Community raises money til enough to pay

One-Person Operation valley-malbec-tasting-episode-982/ I.F. Stone

Subscription Thedaily.com ● year ● Apps – tactile ● Hot spots – pull up what want ● Integrate twitter feeds into stories ● News can break into app

Possible Ideas for Future ●Government subsidy, perhaps from tax on ISPs, cable ●Not entirely new idea: remember tax subsidies, anti-trust exemptions…Ben Franklin ●Micropayments

What’s Holding Us Back? ●Privacy ●Payment systems AP

But Will People Pay for It? ● Buy apps ● Buy cable TV ● Eduardo Porter – The Price of Everything o What we pay makes little sense – $3 for bitter coffee o Less likely to give blood if pay for it than give for free ● Distorted prices steer value wrong way

What is the Value of News? ●Not going to denigrate blogs, but do remember that blogs have to feed on something ●News, the way we’ve come to know it, affects way we think o Accept serendipity and learn from it o Get out of our high-volume echo chambers, which not only feed us one view but magnify it

This is the Value of News ●Certainly opinion has its place ●Some celebrate the impending death of “elitist” or “institutional” news ●Maybe some relevance, but also some value o Attribution o Forced to seek out other views – maybe learned that people who held them weren’t demons o Let’s not marinate in nostalgia, but recognize considerable value o Orchestra at full volume