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.

Comments

I'm amazed

[g0bshiTe]

Not at the summary not at TFA, but more that there is a market for golf crash injury victim lawyers.

I would pay. But newspapers do it wrong.

[Opportunist]

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.

Re:I'm still reading the paper on... paper

[icebike]

Either way, the younger generation isn't stupider than yours; it's just younger.

Badger jizz. I can do calculus, kinematics and statistics. My kids can barely count to twenty.

Your fault.