NDM: The future of newspapers

Build the wall analysis 

Summary

• Section 1 (To all of the bystanders reading this…)

The introduction of a new revenue stream through paid subscriptions intimidates an audience which is so naturally resolved to online free content. 

• Section 2 (Truth is, a halting movement toward...)

High-end journalism remains unnecessary as audiences prefer the news in its plain form. The attention provided to news is sufficed by online discussions and interaction on social media, rather than critical news reporting served by journalists - which is also paid for. 

• Section 3 (Beyond Mr. Sulzberger and Ms. Weymouth…)

Online subscription provides the incentive of delivering news to the consumer's 'doorstep', which builds from the initially suggested method of encouraging consumers to purchase the newspaper after finding it online - a failed strategy.

• Section 4 (For the industry, it is later than it should be…)

The requirement of a niche is intact with the decision for a newspaper to go behind an online paywall - as demonstrated by The Times.

Overall summaryThis essay discusses the decay of print journalism as a previously unfathomable event to the uprising phenomenon of the internet and new/digital media. David Simon recognises the faults in a system of online subscriptions because of the transgression of journalism into social media, blogs and online forums. Due to this abundance in sources where news is essentially reported, the digitised versions of the newspapers become peripheral as it is - the implication of a paywall only hinders its exposure and coverage even more in a wide market of free online content. The essay continues to discuss the repercussions of falling revenue on the newspaper institutions and how it leads to an ultimate death of the company due to: lower cash-flow, reduced overall output content and reduced quality of content. This links in with the fact that the curation of content which is the sole niche high-end journalism essentially has to offer, is no longer available for these companies to exploit in their business model. As a consequence, the paywall becomes an impractical marketing choice and leaves the newspaper with even more negligence than it already receives.

Dave Levy's response

Dave Levy states the importance of accessibility in new/digital media. The prime differences in professional print journalists and online amateurs are irrelevant in the sense that an audience prioritises accessibility above all - especially when technology (smartphones and apps) serves the content right at the consumer's fingertips in a matter of seconds. 

What is your own opinion? Do you agree that newspapers need to put online content behind a paywall in order for the journalism industry to survive? Would you be willing to pay for news online? 

I believe it is impractical for newspapers to lock their content behind an online paywall due to the main reasons discussed in the embedded articles of this blogpost. This consists of the abundance of other sources (among citizen journalism, online sits/blogs/forums/communities and social media). The reason why companies such as BuzzFeed have grown is because they have something DIFFERENT to offer in the market. This is discovered in the content itself because BuzzFeed is renowned for its close integration with online interactivity which essentially provides the life of the website (users post content, users react to content by sharing, discussing etc). For newspapers to generate revenue they'd have to exploit new and digital media instead of simply reinstating significance to high-end journalistic content - which is tangential in today's second-by-second world where everything changes in a couple clicks.