Slashdot Mirror
News Worth Buying On Paper
theodp writes " Last night,' confesses Business Insider's Henry Blodget, 'I did something I very rarely do: I bought a newspaper. Why? 'Because there was some news in the newspaper that I wanted that wasn't available online for free [a hyperlocal zoning story].' The problem in the news industry, suggests Blodget, is there is way too much commodity news coverage of the same stories, so it has to be given away for free. To be able to charge for news, Blodget suggests, you need more news that can't be found anywhere else. So, is there any type of news that you're still willing to pay for these days?" I've recently discovered that a newspaper in The Villages, Florida publishes a monthly list of "Golf Cart Crashes (With Injuries)," googling for which only seems to bring up ads for lawyers specializing in that area, so paper will have to do.
Because the really good in-depth articles are not available online, unless you pay. And I prefer to read at leasure on a large tabloid format, instead of on my mobile or laptop.
That said, there is a whole generation growing up who thinks the generic news with 5 lines of information and 2000 lines of unwarranted conclusions are the standard for news. A fertile field for would-be demagogues.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
How much did you pay for the paper?
How many physical ads in the paper were you "forced" to glance over?
On the bright side, at least your viewing habits were not tracked. (Probably!)
My wife and I still read the local rag (The Press Democrat) because, although we've read most of the national and international news online 1 or 2 (or sometimes even 3) days before, there are stories in Sonoma County (and parts north) that simply don't show up anywhere else. It used to be owned by the NY Times organization, but it was recently bought by a group of local investors who are emphasizing the Local News aspect.
We might switch to the electronic version of it, but we will not lose our need to know what's happening in our own community.
Not at the summary not at TFA, but more that there is a market for golf crash injury victim lawyers.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
An online paper with a set of sliders. That way I can choose to receive 70% hard news articles 20% book reviews and 10% human interest. On the human interest I can dial 0% celebrity gossip, 60% cat pictures and 40% heart warming stories of strangers helping old ladies.
Someone else can dial 70% showbiz, 20% financial and 10% international news.
OK so I may have made up these percentages and categories, but I think a tailor made paper like that could be successful.
The development in news is kinda disheartening. I can't talk about your country, obviously, in mine we get more and more of low quality papers, some being pushed onto you for free (literally. You open your door and there's a newspaper hanging on your doorknob, not that you ever signed up for one). You can pick up newspapers on your way to work in the subway or at the train station. For free.
Quality-wise you're dealing with the worst kind of bull that you could possibly think of. 99% opinion, 1% weather forecast and quiz page. Of course, you cannot SELL a newspaper like this. Never. Not only do I get that kind of crap pushed in my face (literally...), I can get the same kind of "quality" (and even better) online.
I think if you want to SELL your news, you have to deliver quality. Give me information. Not opinion, not yellow press nonsense, not articles that were copy/pasted from some online news source or some news agency, i.e. the same crap I can get for free (and often get whether I want to have it or not). Give me well researched articles that go beyond the surface, on topics that actually matter. Do an exclusive interview with an interesting person, a politician with a vision (who doesn't just repeat whatever bull his party wants to spew), report about stuff that matters, send a reporter there and ask the people around for their view. Ignore the "official" bull and dig deeper.
THAT is what journalism is about. For everything else, I already have more than I could possibly want, and I will most certainly not pay for it. If anything, you'd have to pay me to be better than the rest of the crap.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That is what is killing the newspaper business (IMO). Anyone can get the AP stories instantly now. If something happens in Washington D.C. there will be dozens of identical reports about it.
If something happens in your town you might catch it on a local news show. Unless they're also busy covering what just happened in D.C.
A local paper can give you the local news and tell you what the local impact of whatever it was that just happened in D.C. will be.
But in order to do that, the local paper has to hire local reporters who have more knowledge/expertise than the average person. And it is cheaper to skip that and just buy the stories from the AP. And then fail because no one wants to pay for a paper when you've already read the content on your PC, iPad and phone.
The Guardian Weekly is, in my opinion, a great weekly paper with many in-depth articles, most of which from an objective point of view. And even if they are subjective, this is usually clear, and gives another interesting view on the matter. The news is "worldly" (ie. not about Justin Bieber's latest haircut) and the result of a careful selection of the most interesting pieces from various other newspapers.
More importantly, because it is a weekly paper (and on top of that a tabloid), the amount of fillers is seriously reduced, and all articles are newsworthy and readable.
For how long will real newspapers exist if the readers want everything for free online? And when will they notice that all these interesting stories, ranging from PRISM to Syria were actually being written by paid journalists? When will the blindingly obvious implication that a world without investigative journalism is a dictatorship hit them?
And now someone like Henry Blodget is trying to say that newspapers need stuff that can't be found elsewhere to survive, which basically means to become the local gossiping outlet? He should be ashamed of himself.
We buy a Sunday paper almost every week because it's really hard to line the bird cage using a flat screen monitor.
âoeAny society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
I spent a lot of time reading free news online, and I have to say you get what you pay for (present company excluded, of course.)
Much online news seems like it was written by unpaid interns at media companies who are on tight deadlines. There's a reason for that.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
If news companies want to make money they should do more than reprint the same stories that everyone else is running from the wire service.
Getting reporters to actually work and dig up stories and write about interesting angles, so that they provide unique useful stories, and then they might have something worth selling.
I'm as hardcore geek as they come and I still prefer to read the weekend paper as paper because:
1) I like to read it with my saturday breakfast. A laptop, tablet or phone just is a pain for this and I'd smudge it up with my greasy paws anyway.
2) The natural flow and visual arrangement of a newspaper just works better in an absolutely defined space than it does in the maleability of an HTML document.
3) Computers distract you with a million things and constantly shine bright lights in your eyes. Paper is much better for reading any works of even moderate length because it does one thing and is gentle on the eyes.
Papers will still be around for a long time, mainly because of point #3. Certainly not in the numbers they once were, but technology natrually has a way of forcing once-ubiqutous things into niches. Think of cars vs. horses, movies vs. live theatre and now computers vs. paper.