It all started the other day when Scott Kurtz (PVPOnline.com) made a comment on the forum at Daily Cartoonist regarding newspaper layoffs. Scott has comment #3 and then the hilarity ensues.
Much like the LJ cliques, Kurtz was attacked by the pack of piranha koolaid drinkers who inhabit that pond over at Daily Cartoonist. I can certainly feel for Kurtz, having been flamed by con koolaid drinkers myself for innocuous comments.
I’ve got nothing to say about the whole “Web comics are ruining print comics!” debate (seeing as how I think it’s ridiculous) but this topic of discussion between Nick and me the other night brought about an idea that I thought was worth sharing.
We were talking about newspapers and their eventual demise when we zeroed in on one of the big problems with print media giving way to bloggers and such: integrity. The print guys are right about one thing: the internet does NOT adhere to the principles of journalism and those principles must be preserved. Good journalism is essential to an informed public and a thriving democracy.
So, how to do that? Well, it comes back to getting print journalism to the web. If newspapers would stop fighting the web (sound familiar, Music Companies?) and reallocate their resources to TRANSITIONING to digital rather than printed content, I believe there could be a way to make money to pay the journalists.
Micropayments (thanks Scott McCloud!). If the programming for micropayments was standardized and implemented (PayPal, are you listening?), then newspapers could easily charge for content. The key here is to charge per article rather than demand full subscriptions. If the AJC stopped printing the paper tomorrow, I’d certainly pay for what I wanted to read, because I WANT to read articles by journalists, not bloggers. That’s why I pay over $4.28 EACH for my 4 newspapers every week. It would save me a bit of cash to pay 5¢ or 10¢ or whatever for 24 hour access to content written by journalists rather than paying for whole papers that waste newsprint and gas to deliver to my house. It’s been my experience that the online versions of newspapers do not have the same info as the print versions, which is why I still subscribe.
But my idea goes further than just paying to read articles. I think there should be another tier offered: pay for unlimited use. The biggest problem with subscription based content is that it can’t be linked to, therefore it stops in its tracks where the web is concerned. Why not get those programmers to work out a way for users to pay for linkable or downloadable versions of stories? I know if I am writing something and want to provide sources, I need to link out or copy the content. Why not offer me a 50¢ download of a pdf? By paying, I’ll get unlimited use of the article and the news source will make money to pay its journalists.
Win-win!
The problem is that the technology is not quite there. It’s close. Look at iTunes for an example of several different levels of users getting several different kinds of content.
It’s up to the newspapers to stop laying off journalists and start laying off print and press people. (I hate to say that since Nick’s JOB is prepress for ad circulars!! Hmm, better get him IT certified, eh?) Newspapers need to reallocate their budgets towards making their sites more robust, offering the SAME content online as the print version and implementing these micropayments to make money (in addition to ads).
Once the newspapers start this transition and readers get used to the idea of micropayments, I think that online journalism will thrive. But as it is right now, this constant infighting and resistance to change is hampering the development of online news. Again, I refer to the music industry, who has been doing the exact same thing – to its detriment.
The antipathy between web comic guys and print comic guys is just a symptom of the underlying fear that the newspaper industry is feeling. I think that the newspaper guys need to take a good hard look at themselves and see just how similar they are behaving to the music industry guys. And I think that they should decide if they want to destroy journalism completely by their refusal to change or if they want to encourage journalism to embrace this digital frontier.
As a web professional, I always find it sad when the Old Skool refuses to acknowledge that it’s 2009. The web and digital media are here to stay. You are either with us or you are GONE. It’s that simple.
So make the right choice. Join us in the 21st century. It’s bright here and we have cookies! ;-)