Newsrooms Debate Paid Coverage

Financial Times:

How much would you pay to read the newspaper equivalent of this page? At about 2,000 of the 50,000 or so words in the printed version of the Financial Times, it should in theory be worth about 4 per cent of the newspaper's cover price -- 10 US cents, 17½ euro cents or eight pence.

Read the whole story: Financial Times

Comments

[bragladish]

lol... these people are totally delusional! they simply don't understand that their credibility is zero! No one cares what they think or write, because we all just saw what they are calling journalistic integrity... yeah, you can't have journalistic integrity and 2 wars and a unprecedented financial meltdown! You've been busted!

[AZterritory]

Pay? Nada, zip, zero. By the time we get our joke of a paper (Arizona Republic) we have already read the news, much of it DAYS ago on the web. The local news is so poorly reported that it's laughable, so we pretty much depend on the web these days.

[larry278]

Too true nationwide. Since the WSJ is a Murdoch paper, I use FT. If HP uses a story from the NYT, LAT or New Yorker, I don't use it. If a story is longer than an article in FT, it's too long for me. If you are the stereotype of somebody's well off, stay at home, aunt in a small city in Iowa, you have the time for New Yorker, maybe the zeitgist too. I don't have the patience to use the New Yorker.
Disclosure: I'm retired & an avid web user. I still read books, 6-8 a year as opposed to 20-26 before I got a computer.

[Stanley]

Paying for news is only relevant if it needs to be breaking news. Most people will wait for some new paraphraser to re-report the breaking news and aggregate the bits and pieces ... and do it for free to get the traffic to their site. This is a no brainer and the newspapers can't claim copyright on events they cover. They can even be cited in a reference and include any information they have cited. What kind of business model will get away from that problem? None of these news sources dare risk being irrelevant as they compete for eyeballs for advertising revenue. The internet has made their voice less valuable because it was less valuable to begin with. Truth is harder to find than hiding behind a brand name of a news source. People are not interested in news, they are interested in truth.

[texastrixie]

Willing to pay? Nothing - and here's why.

Its not that I don't want to pay for services rendered, but even at a dime an article, the cost per day would be prohibited for most Americans. If you care about reading news and editorials, you probably would read at least 20 such items per day. Even at a nickle, that would be over the cost of most of the daily paper in most cities. I no longer take a daily paper simply because I cannot afford it (I still take the Sunday paper). I watch the local tv news, the national 24/7 media, and read NYT, WSJ, and HuffPo daily (the free parts only).

[texastrixie]

As the MSM begins to charge for things, I will be reading less and less. I simply cannot afford roughly $50 a month just to read things. I will continue to subscribe to both Newsweek & Time since I can pay for both of those with one month's worth of newspaper charges. I realize that over time, free media is going to die out, but when it does, I will simply read what I can. I don't want to see print media die, but it may not be a viable medium anymore. My local paper is usually less that a quarter inch most days, and less than a half inch except on Sunday. And most pages have a sliver of news at the top, while the bottom 3/4 of the page is an ad.

I agree something needs to be done, but online the only workable solution is a paid "gateway" that chages a minimal fee per day for everything. Then the host site could negotiate payment with the included online media. I also am not going to be happy to give an additional 30 or 40 websites my credit card info. Yes, I know, I am protected from loss if my card number is appropriated. But not for my lost of time and aggrivation.

[KarateKid]

How about if they pay US to read their propaganda?

[Whatnow]

The propaganda that we get from the msm is not worth anything. Murdoch has lead the way in destruction of news around the world and I am not going to pay for it.

[Willowwind69]

This is so ridiculous! The money for these sites is made through advertising revenue. As soon as they start charging for content the site will die. If they want to charge a fee to not have to deal with all of the advertisements then that might work depending on the charge.