The Price of Journalism: Online publishing offers the business of news an alternative to managed decline
There are those who argue that it is in some way contrary to the “spirit of the internet” to charge for content. This is an absurd contention. The internet is one vast free market. Indeed it is the critics who fail to understand the net. In the early days it might have been possible to regard online publishing as merely a marketing teaser to encourage print sales. Years later, the internet has grown up and grown out of this. It is a proper platform for publishing a newspaper and we propose to treat it as such. Some also argue that internet users will not be willing to pay for content online. We believe readers and potential readers are willing to pay a fair price.
Why the future of good news is not free: At present we are in the absurd position of charging people £2 for our newspaper while simultaneously offering the same content free online. The flawed logic was that internet advertising would pay for it. The recession has put a stop to that, so giving away expensive journalism is financially unsustainable and ultimately bad for us and our readers.
The Dire State of the Newspaper Industry Newspaper Association of America released its estimates for advertising revenue across the newspaper industry. The numbers for 2009 were nothing short of disastrous, once again bringing up a very tough question: Can newspapers find a way to survive?
