A loyal reader sent this link to a survey about how people feel about paying for news online. Of course, the newspapers gave it away for 10 years so it's going to be hard to convince people to pay now.
As I've said before, the brains at Booth/Advance/Newhouse disregarded the opinions of old newsies like me and others who questioned the practice of giving away the news when the idea first surfaced more than ten years ago.
They patted us on the head and said we didn't understand the new realities. Well, as it turned out, we understood it better than them.
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6 comments:
If there was a "like" button here like on Facebook, I would have clicked it.
What does it say about our country when people will pay for cable to watch "Dancing With the Stars" and other mindless crap but think that journalists covering Afghanistan ... or Congress ... or the local school board meeting ... should work for free?
I hear you inky. I agree with you 100 percent.
There is an old saying.
"Nothing good is FREE"
I stopped getting The Flint Journal when they went to three days a week. Took a few weeks to get used to no local newspaper, but eventually I forgot all about it. Once in a while I would check Mlive, but that has to be the worst news Web site ever. Finally started looking at freep.com and loved the way it look. A few weeks ago I decided to try the Journal again, it didn't last long. There's nothing there I can't find someplace else...and usually better written. I know the new people working there think they are doing a good job, the problem is after having a Cadillac newspaper for a lot of years, it's impossible to get very excited about an Aveo. Sure it's nice, and it runs, but it's no Cadillac. These days I'd rather walk.
Ads have long been the source of profits for newspapers, and ads will be in the future. Charging only slows down getting eyeballs to the stories and the ads. The key is to make online advertising desirable to companies and that time is now. This year will be the first that more ad money is spent online than in print. Evolve or die.
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