Karin Dryhurst

Information Gatekeepers Still Don’t Get It

Old guard reporters and editors have once again taken up the cause of paid news content on the Web.

Former TIME managing editor Walter Isaacson calls for the development of a micro-payment system for newspapers and magazines, while media writer Tim Rutten at the LA Times asks the government to exempt newspapers from antitrust laws to allow them to band together for paid content.

I welcome Rutten’s advocacy for a government solution to the newspaper crisis, but this idea represents the tired superiority complex of many mainstream media professionals.

As someone who has spent time in newsrooms, I can understand this learned response to the role of information gatekeeper. But the gates in front of information no longer exist.

Rutten seems to accept the idea of subscription walls, citing The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times as newspapers that have succeeded behind a system of fees, but WSJ has been far from immune from the industry-wide job cuts. In addition, financial news publications occupy a unique space in the media landscape as many business professionals can charge a business account.

At least Isaacson expands the concept by citing Twitpay and Spare Change as micro-payment models that could allow newspapers to charge pennies for individual articles and daily editions.

While in principal this idea sounds feasible, I still wonder whether such a system would send more readers to the blogosphere for free information.

Without a doubt, mainstream newspapers and news magazines offer an indispensable amount of investigative beat reportage that shapes how we understand key issues in politics and public policy. But bloggers have become more adept at breaking their own stories (Talking Points Memo, anyone?). If The New York Times charges for an article about Congressional lobbying, many readers will simply turn to a blog that’s free. Like it or not, that’s unlikely to change.

Rutten and Isaacson both mention other media—television and music—that have survived a move to paid content. But they fail to address the fact that the television industry has started to offer free episodes on the Web and that the music industry has not won the battle over free download software.

The news industry should discuss ways of preventing the further decline of newspapers, but paid content reflects the lack of innovation and creativity within the mainstream media.

Joshua Benton of the Nieman Journalism Lab points to this hurdle and suggests that newspapers follow the example of Twitter founder Odeo and not GM.

Faced with a broken model, Odeo focused on reinventing themselves.

Note: "Reinvent ourselves." Not: "Cut back on our staff a bit more every few months and hope the current business model can survive."

The current business model of advertising and subscription fees has not survived. It’s time for reinvention.

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Posted at 2:54 PM, Feb 06, 2009 in Media
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