Nation's Top Newspaper Execs Meeting Today To Discuss Charging For Online Content: Report

The Atlantic:

Here's a story the newspaper industry's upper echelon apparently kept from its anxious newsrooms: A discreet Thursday meeting in Chicago about their future.

"Models to Monetize Content" is the subject of a gathering at a hotel which is actually located in drab and sterile suburban Rosemont, Illinois; slabs of concrete, exhibition halls and mostly chain restaurants, whose prime reason for being is O'Hare International Airport. It's perfect for quickie, in-and-out conclaves.

Read the whole story: The Atlantic

Comments

[princessofnowt]

Look at Bob Cesca and Huffpo. Great example of the future.

http://www.bobcesca.com/

These social media blogs with the interdependent relationship between reporters/­commentato­rs and the public are now permanent.

Even television news shows have added social media to succeed, nobody wants to read static news without the option of commenting­/discussin­g/viewing discussion anymore.

So journalists- go get your own blogs, and newspapers who want to do what huffpo does- give it a shot, but it must include social media, and it must be free to view.

How does Huffpo make a living? Thats how newspapers will.

I think what they are lamenting is how will they make any money when they all distribute the same hashed up syndicated crap and they don't know what they are doing with regards to social media and they don't want to share and they dont want to let go of their editorial control.

[ReedYoung]

Collusion, price-fixing, and by James Warren, scapegoating; what a perfect example of an industry deserving the trash heap.

quote:
Presumably, Google, Yahoo! and any one of thousands of websites could, and should, get mentioned with scant reverence. Perhaps the age of content theft is coming to an end.
/quote

Inconveniently, the same idiot admits that "theft" is a completely false description of what "Google, Yahoo! and any one of thousands of websites" really do. Conveniently, I can use Google Checkout and SSL to monetize his crappy content, whenever he's man enough to admit his errors. I'm not holding my breath waiting for that!

quote:
During their days of print advertising plenty, the people in this room, or their predecessors, made the catastrophic, myopic decision to not charge. They gave away their expensive efforts for free. They by and large misjudged the significance of the internet.
/quote

But James Warren, like others in his "profession," prefers acting the victim, and scapegoating computers and those who use them successfully, over finding the source of their problem and deducing a solution. And it's staring him right in the face: not one Google Ad on his lousy website. The Huffington Post, Daily Beast, Politico and the like, along with the better college journalism departments, can more than pick up the slack that will be left whenever the old media failures finally admit the obvious.

[DailyElitist]

Hmm... the execs of an entire industry getting together to collude in fixing prices... Say, isn't this a violation of anti-trust laws?

[ReedYoung]

I think it's exactly what anti-trust laws were first drafted to stop.

[NWRICK]

I am really liking this new "WT* Moment" segment on Countdown.
Kind of a mild "Special Comment".

[NWRICK]

I am really liking this new "WTF Moment" segment on Countdown.
Kind of a mild "Special Comment".

[bubbuh]

Monetize Content? Do they mean charge for stuff? Maybe, they should consider the busker model: Play half a tune people want hear and look imploring

[bubbuh]

Monetize content! Maybe, they should hire some people who know how to write.

[lornejl]

Corporate America is trying to find a new way to brainwash us.

[VictoriaP]

Publishers are lucky that we read their CARP at all. It stinks and I can't recall the last time that i went to the website of a newspaper. NYT and others actually try and force you to login before getting to the article. the last thing i need is some artificial barrier that wastes my time and my mindshare, forcing me to remember, yet, another UN/ID.

These guys are clearly the dinosaurs, living in the past. Wake up, there is a cool thing called the Internet.

[bubbuh]

Carp can be very tasty, according to my Chinese friends. Of course, they eat stuff even the French won't touch.

[VictoriaP]

didn't think that CRAP would get past the filter, let's see...

[VictoriaP]

...guess it does

[Rumplestiltskin]

Someone has to pay the costs of reporters. When HP links to newspaper articles they are really freeloading. HP should pay a subscription fee to link, or use their own reporters.

[ReedYoung]

Rubbish. If the newspapers to which HP links want to charge for access to their content they can secure access to their content via secure socket layer, aka https. Whether I read only the synopsis here, or the whole crappy article on theatlantic.com is irrelevant because The Atlantic is too stupid to put any ads on their page.

On the Internet, they're saved even the administrative overhead of signing up advertisers because Google will automate that for them, based on their circulation and the price that the various advertisers are willing to pay. James Warren is talking out of his hat when he blames Yahoo! and Google and the whole goll-darned Internet for his old-fangled incompetence.

[danusgram]

zero, nothing, nada!

[dgscol]

Who wants to pay for global propaganda?

The syndication of these rags has ruined them. That is their problem. they don't seem to get it/

[zius]

Huh? ...i was at the A P thread....­.how did i end up here?..

[bubbuh]

E-grease

[KO4Pres]

HP Lube...

[ReedYoung]

Easy, you followed a hyperlink. Things move all the time while pages load, and sometimes mouse clicks don't land where we expect. I blame Gill Bates.

[geneven]

This is a complex problem. Here are the elements.

1. Newspapers need to charge to maintain independence from advertisers.
2. Newspapers have acquired a huge international audience by giving their products away for free.
3. Newspapers stil. have a significant income from local subscribers.

Factors 2 and 3 have led newspapers, when they try to charge for content, to charge too much. This is because if they charge less, the local subscribers will feel like fools and cancel in droves.

But newspapers must bite the bullet and charge low prices for Internet news -- prices not at all comparible to what local subscribers would pay, because far-away subscribers aren't receiving the same value for the product.

If newspapers continue to try to charge comparibly to their local subscription rates, they will lose their new far-flung audiences.

If they charge less, they will lose their local accounts. They have to choose, and in the long run, the local accounts will mean less money.If they charge less, they will make up the difference in volume.

[bubbuh]

Gonna be harder to wrap Tom Tancredo.

[ladynaga]

How would you like to wrap him?

[bubbuh]

In layers and layers of Rupert Murdoch tied of with Jeff Sessions

[VictoriaP]

he would be handsome in a heavy gauge plastic bag.

[robadeaux]

no matter how they deliver it, we'll be paying for their propoganda and complicity for generations.

[Altruth]

The newspapers need to charge advertisers and not the readers.