You pay for your news, though, right? Like, you subscribe to publications whose reporting meets your standards, and you don't run an ad-blocker when reading them online?
Because if you aren't willing to pay for responsible news, you shouldn't be surprised when it stops appearing.
News monetization sucks. I pay for a handful of news sources because I believe news is important and should not (always) be ad-sponsored.
But even the sites I pay for, I usually access through some rip-off layer to avoid the hassle of logging in and/or evading the tracking that news sites often seem to insist upon.
I resent news media relying heavily on clicks. Simultaneously, I understand that news organizations must generate profit somehow, and that many people are unwilling to pay for news.
The problem, as I see it: I pay for a news subscription. News Organization continues to produce low-quality content because they continue to rely on advertising. So, I am paying for the same quality of content as when I did not pay; I am wasting money.
Theoretically, if everyone paid for a news subscription, then News Organization could afford to produce content that relies less, or ideally not at all, on advertising. However, as it stands, I do not trust the quality of News Organization, because it currently relies on advertising, and consequently does not optimize for quality: accuracy, timeliness, transparency and newsworthiness.
Ultimately it's all because of ads. If we all had to pay for our news, then we'd be more cautious and reluctant about clickbait headlines. And media would not be in a race to the bottom, affecting news quality.
Does that mean you're willing to pay for the journalism if it doesn't have ads? So far that model hasn't worked either. Or are you saying you would rather the reporting didn't exist than it be supported by ads you find distasteful? If that's the case, don't consume the news.
If I believe my work is a valuable service to my community, closing up shop is more than a "loss of business".
I wish paying for news would actually make news organizations prosper. But subscription only slightly help. Looking at past revenue of the LA times, subscribers accounted for under 20% of revenue [1]. The remaining 80% was from advertising.
If we all subscribe to 3 or 4 papers right now, the best thing they can do for their business is bombard us with ads to make up for the remaining percentage. Well, we have adblockers now so it doesn't work.
I don't know what the solution is. Journalism that holds people accountable is crucial for society. But customers paying for the news doesn't work. It never did.
I might pay for Netflix or HBO. If one is insufficiently entertaining, I won't. It makes sense for Netflix/HBO to compete on producing the most entertaining and addicting product, and I know that's exactly what I'm paying for.
If news agencies are funded by having more subscribers, they'll also be incentivized to produce the most entertaining and addictive content.
The value of news is not in telling me what I want to hear, nor you what you want to hear, it's in telling us what we need to hear but don't want to. You & I might both be high-minded enough to pay for news that bores us or offends us - but I hardly expect the typical person to do so.
I don't have a better suggestion - but a per-article paywall, or even a subscription, leads to the same clickbait sensationalist rot that advertiser-supported news suffered.
I'm starting to feel like the people who complain about the poor quality of media and aggressive advertising are part of the problem by refusing to pay for content when it is offered to them in an up-front way. As if the entire world is entitled to open access to journalism. Or that paying for news hasn't been how publishers operated for hundreds of years.
What's broken is what you said in your first statement: even if I pay, they tend to also advertise. I also used to pay for a number of local / regional newspapers, but me paying them didn't get me quality journalism in a single transaction, it just got me better access to click-bait a lot of the time, and I got to feel good that maybe I was kinda supporting good press. (I also had a big problem with the fact that despite only wanting a digital subscription, I still got paper copies at my house, but because I wasn't supposed to, I had no way to stop it when I left town and I was stuck with a dozen papers on my driveway when I returned - nice and safe for me. I had to resort to borderline illegal harassing behavior to get them to stop.)
There are high quality publications that I think do consistently do the original research and due diligence behind their reporting, but they're mostly just not of interest to me anymore because they're national. I'm overloaded with political stuff in my face from other sources anyway - I'm happier just not reading good commentary on it in my spare time. I find BBC is a good source of world news, but they never ask me for money..
I understand this sentiment but it's extremely short sighted. Paying for news is about incentives. Much like Google having poor incentives to provide good unbiased search functionality based on the fact that their revenue comes from advertising, news work poorly aligns with advertising incentives also.
Whether you contribute to that or not is your choice.
So what's the answer then? Before the internet almost all journalism was "paywalled." You either bought a subscription or an individual copy of what the organization has to offer.
Ad-supported journalism is a joke in a society that abuses advertising so thoroughly. Using an ad blocker is more than a convenience, it's a security measure. Arguably it's also better for the environment [1] [2].
One article [3] argues for "non-reformist reforms," which try to mitigate the commercial pressures on journalism. However the article's solution seems to be to switch to public media models and/or government funding. As the article puts it:
"Therefore, any initiative that erodes the commercial and anti-democratic design of existing media institutions—by transitioning them into nonprofit outlets, facilitating public media partnerships, unionizing newsrooms, and establishing media cooperatives—can help radicalize news workers and engage communities while laying the groundwork for more transformative change in the future."
I honestly don't know how well that'll work, but it's also basically what the article suggests to pay for journalism for a year:
"They can enlist foundations or other sponsors to underwrite their work. They can turn to readers who are willing to subscribe, renew their subscriptions, or make added donations to subsidize important coverage during a crucial election."
Stengel's article also says, "A large percentage of these Americans see media as being biased. Well, part of the reason they think media are biased is that most fair, accurate, and unbiased news sits behind a wall."
That wasn't true 40 years ago and I don't think it's true now. A lot of journalism strives to be unbiased, but that will always be a goal it reaches for, not one it will attain. To say otherwise only continues to erode society's trust of journalism.
The money to pay journalists has to come from somewhere.
In my opinion, the best news sources I read regularly are ones I pay for directly, with content hidden behind a paywall. This kind of reporting and investigating costs money to produce and is worth paying money for (and not just advertising views).
I want high quality content, and I'm willing to pay for it. Wired recently starting blocking ad-blockers, with an offer of $4/month for access. I decided it was time to start putting my money where my mouth is.
I'm tired of low quality content, I want to be supporting serious, intelligent journalism that goes a bit further than the click-bait we're stuck with at the moment. Even the content traditional newspapers are putting out online has become vapid, they need to start shooting for the standards they used to and become comfortable with charging for it.
I've got £50/month waiting for quality content. Maybe not everyone does? But then again plenty of people were happy/able to pay for their daily newspaper. It feels like there's a gaping hole in the market at the moment, I'm hopeful that we're seeing the start of the return to journalism.
Because if you aren't willing to pay for responsible news, you shouldn't be surprised when it stops appearing.
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