Life After the Pay Wall: Ignorance Ain't Bliss After All
In the Future, News-Haves Lord Over News-Have-Nots, Cable News Gets Stupider ... and Wolff Goes to Jail?
EDITOR'S NOTE: Imagine, dear reader, you are in the future -- say, 2012 -- and living in a world where news is no longer free ...
I saw my old friend Michael Wolff, founder of the news-aggregation site Newser, in prison last week. I'm ashamed to say that I put off visiting him because I feared that he wouldn't be doing too good -- that he'd be, you know, ill-informed, and that he'd try to pump me for news from the outside world that, legally, I couldn't tell him. Sure, he looked a little older (he's lost all his hair -- the remaining half-dozen strands), but ironically, the first high-profile convictee of the 2011 anti-aggregation law -- aka "The Information No Longer Wants to Be Free" law -- actually seemed to be on top of all the news of the day. Way more so than a lot of people on the outside.
To be honest, I didn't see any of this coming back in late 2009, when newspapers all started putting their online content behind pay walls and jacking up print-subscription rates to compensate for cratering advertising revenues. And even though 2009 was also the year that the FCC got all schoolmarmish about the web -- issuing, for starters, strict new rules prohibiting bloggers from writing favorably about swag without full disclosure -- I guess I didn't realize how quickly things would snowball from there.
But prison? For my old friend Michael? Really? Yes, he did violate the law by buying online newspaper subscriptions for his staff, and then having Newser continue to do what it's always done (pay staffers to read the news so you don't have to, then summarize and quote from it briskly). He acts like he knew all along that imprisonment was inevitable, but I'm not so sure. After all, other big players in the aggregation game have successfully avoided prosecution by adjusting to the new law. Like The Huffington Post, which has since, of course, largely turned into an Arianna Huffington fan-fiction site -- and has better traffic than ever. Or Gawker, which stopped quoting from and referencing the mainstream media, and instead thrives largely on its wheelhouse free content: the Byzantine, self-referential morass of commenters' comments about other commenters' comments. Meanwhile, how pathetic that Google got out of the aggregation game with barely a fight or a whimper. But I suppose with its latest goldmine, ads sold against real-time search results of news-free Twitter tweets (90% of which are about what's on TV right now -- "news" for which the FCC thankfully granted a waiver), the closure of Google News had no real material impact on its bottom line.
I honestly think that Michael is in prison to serve as an example -- as a warning to others who would disseminate news freely in the new era of pay walls and "luxury" newspaper subscriptions. At the same time, I don't think the FCC and the politicians who backed such draconian legislation starting in 2010 really thought through the personal and societal ramifications of their crusade.
For one thing, the fact that the Russian mob has switched to trafficking in pay-wall passwords because it's often more lucrative than counterfeit handbags -- surreal, isn't it? And let's face it: The cultural divide between the news-haves and the news-have-nots is just depressing. I'm relieved that I still have enough income to be able to afford the now $7,000-per-year New York Times (yes, I'm one of the remaining 30,000 or so subscribers to the nearly ad-free paper and its highly exclusive website) as well as a few other legitimate news titles. But it feels both Orwellian and un-American that I had to sign an ironclad nondisclosure agreement in the form of the much-reviled "Premium Content Code of Honor" that all paid-news consumers now have to agree to. And with TV news -- no longer legally able to piggyback on the hard work done by newspaper journalists -- having devolved so dramatically, the "free" news that's out there is almost worthless. I mean, geez, CNN with its three recent days of wall-to-wall coverage of those adorable quintuplets who fell asleep at the controls of their runaway balloon, only to crash land, improbably, in a well, where they were trapped for four additional days? Enough already!
And don't even get me started on The Glenn Beck Channel (formerly Fox News). If one more poor person comes up to me and says, "Do you accept Glenn Beck as your personal savior?" I'm going to lose it. Of course, I'm legally bound to not reveal what I know, as a Premium Content Code of Honor signatory, about Mr. Beck's status, or lack thereof, as the messiah -- or, for that matter, President Obama's status, or lack thereof, as the antichrist. (If you're one of the lucky few who can afford the facts, well, good for you. And hey, e-mail me; let's hang out some time!)
I mean, I guess we should be happy that newspapers are doing so great -- that pay walls, against everybody's expectations, actually work and that revenues at ... oh, wait, I'm pretty sure what I almost told you I might have read in The New York Times business section.
So never mind. I've said too much already.
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Simon Dumenco is the "Media Guy" media columnist for Advertising Age.
You can follow him on Twitter @simondumenco
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You of all people should understand that INFORMATION is NOT FREE. To pretend otherwise is asinine or worst - Forest Gump is a genius compared to you.
News is a commodity and from this column you are saying that WRITERS SHOULD NOT BE PAID. Well, are you getting paid at AdAge for writing this column?
If you are getting paid, then others should get paid too, right?
So, please, this is not funny for a lot of people who are going to lose their jobs simply because the news industry is going to go bankrupt because no one wants to pay for their services.
The army of fact checkers at the NY Times, the many news bureaus and the distribution services all cost big bucks. I am willing to pay for it to maintain the integrity of the news reported. But I also understand people wanting to "know" without any barriers. Perhaps if the price was low enough, and all citizens would have to sign up for news – as a civic duty, then the industry would make the $ they need. Car owners all pay registration fees every year, why not a small news fee to the source of your choice (and you can pay more if you want the bells and whistles).
Just a thought......
Penny
It's not just a matter of the consumer feeling entitled to the latest headlines without paying for them. The last few years have been very, very, poor years for the entire industry: A cultural revolution takes place in Iran - maybe - and the most information we have on it comes from user-submitted content on Youtube and Twitter. The news agencies are transparently more concerned about pushing a political agenda than they are about delivering information. Time Magazine awarded "America's Most Trusted Journalist" to a comedian.
I'm not proud to say it, and I'm not happy to say it, but it just doesn't matter how much manpower goes into a story, nor how much work is being overlooked. The bottom line is, the consumer doesn't just want The News for free - he's starting to think that The News isn't worth paying for.
The industry has lost the faith of the consumer, and a pay-wall is not going to restore it. If you were to ask me, I'd say some things about actively and visibly restoring journalistic integrity, considering treating the viewer like a competent adult capable of understanding complex situations, and more reporting on things that are actually important and less on Balloon Boy and the Swine Flu - but that's just my opinion.
What's important is that a pay-wall will be ineffective, and maybe even disastrous. It's a six-week trial of Lipitor for an industry that needs a diet and some time at the gym.
Simon
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Simon Dumenco
"Media Guy" media columnist
Advertising Age
Pay walls are anti-democracy and limit freedom of access to all but an elite. The New York Times has 6 times the readership online that it does in print: that is a force of good in information in the US.
Journalists and media companies do need to understand that we are in the biggest period of change since TV killed radio -- and a lot of daily newspapers and magazines -- in the 50s. There will be enough ad revenue to support online newspapers: just not pricey new buildings in Manhattan.
Newspapers need to stop treating 80% of their impressions as "remnant" and learn to sell and properly valuate their highly influential audiences. For more on inventory management solutions, see: www.primaryimpact.com/dpac4.
The fact checkers are so unreliable that they can't even tell us how many people were actually in Washington DC on 9/12. Why? Because the media is biased to the left, and thus ignored a perfect legitimate news story because it leaned to the right. I couldn't care less about politics, but I do care about fair minded reporting. Legacy media fails miserably there.
What we are left with is "pretty good news" from unbiased bloggers or citizen reporters which in the view of many is better than the "professional grade" news dished out by the legacy crew. The only pay wall I'd ever visit is the type of micro-wall you get for individual reporters like Michael Yon reporting from Afghanistan. I trust his reporting more than anything I'd ever read in the mainstream. Big corporations can't compete with that because they are counting demographics to aim the news, rather than provide unbiased news to serve to the community. Pay walls will do nothing to solve that problem.