A couple of nights ago, on my way out of a convenience store, I noticed the headline "How to Save Your Newspaper: A Modest Proposal" above an illustration of a fish wrapped in a copy of The New York Times on the cover of the Feb. 16 edition of TIME magazine.
Being that the news rack was displayed toward the going-out side of customer traffic, near the entrance/exit, I didn't notice it until I had already made my purchases and reached the door. I suspect this has happened to a lot of folks at this particular store. No doubt at many others. I wonder who buys things off a rack you don't see until you're on your way out.
Having already made my purchases, I pondered whether to pull out my debit card again and buy this magazine. Remembering that TIME also has an online edition, I decided to forgo the purchase and read the article at home, on the computer, for free.
Ironic as it is, the piece, by former TIME Managing Editor Walter Isaacson, describes how newspapers, and news magazines, have become their own worst enemies by posting their most precious product, their reporting, online and making it available for free.
It discusses how the only folks who've made money off this model are those who run search engines and news aggregators like Yahoo!, who collect and post links to news stories on their own Web sites. Without having to pay a staff of reporters to bring back the news, they have all the content with none of the cost.
Isaacson argues, and I tend to agree, that when you offer your reporting for free, and rely solely on advertising for revenue, you devalue that reporting and lose sight of your audience. A newsman's audience is readers, not advertisers. Perhaps I'm showing my bias, but while reporting has historically been supported to a degree by advertising, the point at which journalists' work is supported solely by advertising is the point at which they cease to first and foremost serve readers.
I would also posit that devaluing the part of the product that drives readership discourages advertising. If a publication doesn’t value itself enough to charge readers for content, readers don’t value that content. If I’m a shop owner, do I really want to pay money to advertise in a publication to which readers have little or no attachment? And one where the editorial content is arguably intended to please advertisers, not subscribers?
In arguing that newspapers and newsmagazines stand up on a three-legged revenue stool of subscriptions, rack sales and advertising, Isaacson correctly notes that a one-legged stool provides little support.
But in arguing for an online pay-for-content system that would charge in small increments, perhaps by the week, the day or the article, I think he may be walking a somewhat dangerous path -- especially if charging by the article.
I may be wrong, but it seems to me that the sort of business model that charges per article would encourage inflammatory, outrageous and possibly inaccurate headline writing for the purpose of generating traffic. Under such a system, newspaper owners could single out reporters who produce the most popular stories, identify the characteristics of the headlines drawing readers to those stories, and encourage a style that accentuates whatever characteristic seems to be most popular among content-buyers.
That's not to say newspapers don't already do that, to a degree, with focus groups, but the burden would be much more immediate and much more direct for reporters to get their individual readership numbers up. Reporters would be encouraged not to produce a product that served the reader in the best, most intellectually honest way, but to attract the most hits to their story. And they would compete against their own colleagues for page views.
Isaacson argues such a system may bring journalism back to its roots, wherein journalists, serving readers, produce content valuable to their audience.
My fear, though, is that because attention spans are short, and information has already become so fast and cheap, that expediency is more than ever valued over thoroughness.
Perhaps I'm nostalgic, but I'd rather get it right than first. I think it was probably Peter Jennings who lamented that television news has a bad habit of delivering the latest news, sometimes at the sacrifice of the most important news.
And for the record, I went back to the store the next day and bought the hard copy of the magazine.
