tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/future-of-journalism-14937/articlesFuture of journalism – The Conversation2024-01-25T16:33:07Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2217042024-01-25T16:33:07Z2024-01-25T16:33:07ZAI advances have left news publishers fearing for their business models – new research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570910/original/file-20240123-19-upna4n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C27%2C4647%2C3226&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/news-update-journalism-headline-media-concept-430087837">Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>News organisations are bracing for serious disruptions as a result of the increasing influence of artificial intelligence (AI) – both on the way that they work and the way their audiences consume news. As part of our latest <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/journalism-media-and-technology-trends-and-predictions-2024">journalism trends report</a>, my colleagues and I at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found that less than half (47%) of 314 editors, CEOs and other digital leaders from more than 50 countries say they are confident about journalism’s prospects in 2024.</p>
<p>The report details a tough period for the news industry over several years. A decline in online advertising, slowing growth in subscriber numbers and rapidly declining referrals from social media have fed into dramatic falls in revenue. </p>
<p>Industry data shows that <a href="https://www.datawrapper.de/_/467l2/?v=4">Facebook referrals alone fell by 48%</a> in the past year, and many fear that search traffic will be next. Google and Microsoft, among other tech giants, are expected to roll out AI-driven, chat-based interfaces that have been trained on publisher content – mostly, or so the publisher of the New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/27/business/media/new-york-times-open-ai-microsoft-lawsuit.html">alleges</a>, without their permission. </p>
<p>But it is not just internet search. We are also seeing a proliferation of conversational AI assistants built into computers, mobile phones and even cars that will change the way we discover and consume content of all types. Queries about the news are increasingly answered directly by the AI interface. Links to sources of the news on publisher websites, meanwhile, disappear into the background. As a result, far fewer audience eyeballs will find their way to each publisher’s site.</p>
<p>Against that background, it is not surprising to find that some publishers such as <a href="https://apnews.com/article/openai-chatgpt-associated-press-ap-f86f84c5bcc2f3b98074b38521f5f75a">AP</a> and <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/13/tech/open-ai-axel-springer-chatgpt/index.html">Axel Springer</a> have already done deals with AI companies. The New York Times, meanwhile, is taking <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/27/business/media/new-york-times-open-ai-microsoft-lawsuit.html">legal action</a> over what it says was the unauthorised use of published work to train AI technologies. </p>
<p>Many publishers hope that this time round, the outcome will benefit publishers of original and high-quality news and information. “There is an opportunity for the industry to work with AI players to design a symbiotic ecosystem and that’s an opportunity we must not squander,” says the chief operating officer of a leading UK news provider, who wishes to remain anonymous. </p>
<p>Most publishers in our survey, however are not optimistic that this new phase of negotiations will work out well. More than one-third (35%) of respondents felt that only a few big media companies would benefit, while around half (48%) predicted that ultimately there would be little money available for any publisher.</p>
<p><strong>Publishers are not confident about funding from big AI companies</strong></p>
<p>Industry concerns are not just about money. More than two-thirds (70%) of respondents think that widespread availability of generative AI could reduce trust in the news. “The explosion of crap content definitely has the potential to shake the trust,” says Christoph Zimmer, chief product officer at German news company Der Spiegel.</p>
<p>Zimmer highlights concerns about the use of deep fakes and other synthetic media, even as he hopes that the widespread availability of such second-rate content could also “allow [trusted] news media to differentiate ourselves more clearly”.</p>
<h2>Trying to adapt</h2>
<p>While the risks around business models, platforms and trust need to be managed, publishers know there are also significant opportunities to make their newsrooms more efficient. In our survey, we found the majority of publishers (56%) are focusing on back-end automation this year – using AI to help with copyediting, metadata creation and translation – with the next most common AI-related aim being identifying better ways to recommend content (37%). </p>
<p>“The most compelling user case for AI in newsrooms is in the automation of routine tasks,” argues Ed Roussel, head of digital at The Times and Sunday Times. “We do not believe that AI is a substitute for reporting stories, which will continue to be done by journalists.”</p>
<p><strong>Which newsroom uses of AI will be most important in 2024?</strong></p>
<p>This focus on back-end automation is partly because news executives recognise the reputational risks in using AI for content. But that won’t stop others pushing ahead. Nordic publishers are routinely adding AI written summaries to their stories, while one German newspaper uses an <a href="http://globalprintmonitor.info/en/news/industry-news/newspapers/66060-ai-and-robot-writer-klara-key-to-koelner-stadt-anzeiger-medien-s-tech-future-as-it-switches-off-its-presses">AI robot to write 5% of its articles</a>, albeit with human oversight. </p>
<p><a href="https://newsgpt.ai/">NewsGPT</a> is the world’s first 24-hour TV news station created entirely by AI, and <a href="https://www.channel1.ai/">Channel1.ai</a>, due to launch this year, promises a personalised news channel that can speak in any language.</p>
<p>Rapid developments in AI are disrupting many industries, not just journalism, but news executives know they can’t just bury their heads in the sand. Rather than using AI to create volume, forward-thinking news organisations should be looking to build unique content and experiences that can’t be easily replicated by AI – think curating live news, deep analysis, and human experiences that build connection between audiences and the news provider. </p>
<p>But they’ll also need to use AI technologies to make their businesses more efficient, as well as more relevant for audiences, in an era when <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/five-things-news-media-can-do-respond-consistent-news-avoidance">many are turning away from the news</a>.</p>
<p>The impact of AI on the provision of online content in general is harder to predict. Much will depend on emerging public attitudes to the technology, but also on how responsibly the platforms that share this content behave. Equally important is the outcome of the legal cases around intellectual property, which could open up – or severely restrict – the way news content can be used for training AI models without proper compensation. </p>
<p>We’re still at the early stages of the AI revolution but this is a year in which many of the rules and approaches are likely to be set. Against that background, journalists and news organisations need to proactively rethink their role and purpose with some urgency.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221704/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The Reuters Institute received funding for the 2024 Digital Trends and Predictions report from the Google News Initiative (GNI) as part of a wider agreement that includes support for the audience focussed Digital News Report. </span></em></p>New research by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism about the effects of AI on news organisations reveals big challenges ahead.Nic Newman, Senior Research Associate, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2110782023-08-10T15:12:32Z2023-08-10T15:12:32ZCanadian government’s battle with big tech platforms and what it means for the future of journalism<p>Canada recently passed a law to address the continuing financial woes of its traditional news media, trust in which has steadily fallen to <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2022-06/Digital_News-Report_2022.pdf">42% in 2022</a>. The <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/online-news.html">Online News Act,</a> known as Bill C-18, passed in June 2023 but is yet to come into force. It will require digital media companies to compensate news organisations for hosting their content on sites such as Facebook and Instagram and via search engines such as Google. </p>
<p>In response, it is reported that Meta has begun to block news stories from its sites Facebook and Instagram. News companies are reported to have <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/8/8/canadian-publishers-seek-antitrust-probe-of-meta-blocking-news#:%7E:text=Canada's%20Online%20News%20Act%2C%20part,the%20end%20of%20this%20year.">called on the country’s antitrust regulator to investigate</a>, arguing: “Meta seeks to impair Canadian news organizations’ ability to compete effectively in the news publishing and online advertising markets.”</p>
<p>It’s the latest episode in the digital transformation of the global news industry whose business model has been severely disrupted as news revenues have moved to online platforms rather than the producers of the news themselves. In Canada, 80% of all online advertising revenue (CAD$9.7 billion for 2020) now goes to <a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2023/06/changes-to-news-availability-on-our-platforms-in-canada/">Meta</a> and <a href="https://blog.google/intl/en-ca/company-news/outreach-initiatives/an-update-on-canadas-bill-c-18-and-our-search-and-news-products/">Google</a>. </p>
<p>By requiring them to provide a digital dividend to news outlets, the act aims to reinvigorate Canada’s news industry, which was <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2021/canada">hit particularly hard during the COVID pandemic</a>, with the closure of at least 40 news outlets. Meta’s decision to block news from its platforms is likely to make life even harder for the country’s news industry.</p>
<p>Sue Gardner, a journalist and influential media commentator in Canada <a href="https://www.mcgill.ca/maxbellschool/max-policy/c-18">has criticised the legislation</a> as trying to fix a “tragedy without a villain” – apart from perhaps the internet itself. She says: “News publishers want to appear on those platforms, because that’s where people are finding news.” </p>
<p>She also says news companies must come up with better ways of monetising their content – and that waging war on the platforms where most people consume that content is not the best way forward.</p>
<h2>The Australian experience</h2>
<p>Any deals struck under C-18 are likely to disproportionately benefit the more powerful, larger, established news companies. This has already been happening in Australia where similar legislation was passed in 2021. </p>
<p>In response to the Australian law, Facebook (as it was then) initially blocked all news content before relenting and agreeing on a <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/by-industry/digital-platforms-and-services/news-media-bargaining-code/news-media-bargaining-code">news media bargaining code</a>. This enabled media companies to negotiate with platforms and has reportedly resulted in revenues of about AUD$200 million (£102 million) flowing to news organisations. </p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2022-06/Digital_News-Report_2022.pdf">Reuters Institute</a>, the lion’s share of this initially went to the big players: Nine Entertainment Co, News Corp. Australia,
Australian Community Media, the Guardian, and the ABC. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp reportedly receives <a href="https://jninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Rod-Sims_News-Bargaining-Code_2022.pdf">15%-20% of these funds</a>. But a deal was struck by a group of smaller publishers
who were able to <a href="https://pressgazette.co.uk/news/australia-news-media-bargaining-code-google-deal/">collectively bargain</a> for recompense from Google for use of their content.</p>
<h2>Funding quality journalism</h2>
<p>It’s tempting to focus on the stand off between online media and the government on this matter, but the debate obscures a far deeper issue that societies are wrestling with all over the world: how do we fund quality journalism in an era of fast media? </p>
<p>Where clickbait and entertainment – <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aap9559">even misinformation</a> – are better at attracting eyeballs (and therefore generating more revenue) than news produced by newspaper and broadcast companies, the latter can easily become a diminishing presence in people’s lives.</p>
<p>News consumption is in freefall around the world, whether measured in terms of interest in news, which has <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2022-06/Digital_News-Report_2022.pdf">fallen globally from 63% in 2017 to 51% in 2022</a>), or in the proportion of people who will admit to actively avoiding news, which has risen over the same period from 29% to 37% (46% in the UK). </p>
<p>Only about 17% of people (in countries where payment for news is an established thing) say they are willing to pay for news. And the picture gets far worse when you look at the same factors for young people.</p>
<p><a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2022-06/Digital_News-Report_2022.pdf">Research</a> shows that the vast majority of people under the age of 30 get their news via mobile devices. They want their content to be free and are ambivalent about the notion that the choice of what they get to see is made via an algorithm (in fact the Reuters Institute found that many younger people trust algorithm-based news choices more than the gatekeeping of human news editors).</p>
<h2>Future of journalism</h2>
<p>Scandals – such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/doreen-lawrence-and-prince-harrys-lawsuit-against-daily-mail-publisher-underlines-need-for-leveson-inquiry-part-two-192753">phone hacking</a> by newspapers in the UK – and perceived biases of different news organisations have destroyed trust in much of the established news media. </p>
<p>And <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/01/algorithms-and-the-reflexive-turn/">algorithms have done the rest</a>. By showing people more of what they are perceived to want, they force news “consumers” into silos where the ideas being received by people at one end of the spectrum are barely recognised by people at the other.</p>
<p>This is why the aim, if not the effect, of Canada’s new legislation should be seen as worthy. It’s an attempt to preserve a form of mainstream journalism by encouraging a negotiated future between legacy media and online media. </p>
<p>If Canada does find a way forward to encourage Meta and Google back to the table, then other countries may follow. We could begin to see more settlements and funds flow back into the news media, reversing the trend of the past two decades. Yet, even if it does work, it may not go far enough in thinking through how to ensure the news media remains sustainable in the long term.</p>
<p>Without an organic shift in public trust in the value of high-quality journalism, there will be further erosion to the idea that there is a necessary, public good brought uniquely by our professional news media – which would leave democracy all the poorer.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211078/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andy Miah does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new law in Canada attempts to force big tech to pay for the news stories on its sites. But big tech isn’t playing ball, which is a huge problem for journalism.Andy Miah, Chair in Science Communication & Future Media, University of SalfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2076592023-06-13T23:02:48Z2023-06-13T23:02:48ZYoung people are abandoning news websites – new research reveals scale of challenge to media<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531663/original/file-20230613-9276-i2rjyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C0%2C6695%2C4017&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">shutterstock</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/connect-connection-social-network-media-concept-384774652">Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The crisis in journalism caused by the traditional news media’s struggles to cope with the digital revolution has been <a href="https://theconversation.com/digital-future-or-race-to-the-bottom-what-journalists-really-think-8692">well documented over many years</a>. But news organisations now face a much more fundamental change driven by generations who have grown up with and rely almost entirely on various digital media.</p>
<p>Data published in this year’s <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2023">Reuters Institute Digital News Report</a> shows an acceleration in the structural shifts towards more digital, mobile and media environments. This is where news content is delivered via social media and now, increasingly video-led platforms such as TikTok, rather than via what to a new generation of media consumers look like the more formal and stuffy traditional of “legacy” media, including newspapers and television. </p>
<p>Not only is consumption of traditional television news and print formats continuing to decline at a relentless rate, but online websites are also struggling to engage news users, despite the tumultuous times in which we live. </p>
<p>One benchmark of this shift is a question we ask about key gateways that people use to access news. Using average data across all 46 countries surveyed in our annual report, we found that more people choose social media each year, mostly at the expense of direct access via a traditional news website or app. Access via search and other aggregators has also increased slightly over time.</p>
<p><strong>Use of news websites/apps versus social media to access news:</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531617/original/file-20230613-22-6ccmht.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Graph showing direct news website/app use decline and social news increasing." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531617/original/file-20230613-22-6ccmht.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531617/original/file-20230613-22-6ccmht.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=223&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531617/original/file-20230613-22-6ccmht.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=223&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531617/original/file-20230613-22-6ccmht.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=223&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531617/original/file-20230613-22-6ccmht.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531617/original/file-20230613-22-6ccmht.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531617/original/file-20230613-22-6ccmht.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Which of these was the main way in which you came across news in the last week? Base: All who used a news gateway in the last week in each market-year ≈ 2000. Note: Number of markets grew from 36 in 2018 to 46 from 2021 onwards. Markets listed in online methodology.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Oxford University</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These are averages, and it is important to point out that direct connection remains strong in some markets – mainly in northern Europe, where there is keen interest in news and relatively high trust. But elsewhere – especially in parts of Asia, Latin America, and Africa – social media or other aggregators are by far the most important gateways, leaving news brands much more dependent on third-party platforms for traffic. </p>
<p>Generational differences are also a big part of the story. In almost every country we find that younger users are less likely to go directly to a news site or app and more likely to use social media or other intermediaries. </p>
<p>The following chart for the UK shows that over-35s (blue line) have hardly changed their direct preferences over time, but that the 18–24 group (pink line) has become significantly less likely to use a news website or app. </p>
<p>This is just one indication of how the generation that has grown up in the age of social and messaging apps is displaying very different behaviours as they come into adulthood.</p>
<p><strong>Percentage of people using a news website or app:</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531619/original/file-20230613-29-cae5hq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Graph showing declining use of news websites and apps among 18-24 age group from 53% in 2015 to 24% in 2023 while 35+ group stayed around 52% (see previous two paragraphs)." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531619/original/file-20230613-29-cae5hq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531619/original/file-20230613-29-cae5hq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=228&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531619/original/file-20230613-29-cae5hq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=228&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531619/original/file-20230613-29-cae5hq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=228&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531619/original/file-20230613-29-cae5hq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531619/original/file-20230613-29-cae5hq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531619/original/file-20230613-29-cae5hq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thinking about how you got news online (via computer, mobile, or any device) in the last week, which were the ways in which you came across news stories? Base: 2018–22; 18–24 ≈ 200, 25–34 ≈ 300, 35+ ≈ 1500.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Oxford University</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Dependence on social media may be growing, but it is not necessarily the same old networks. Across all age groups, Facebook is becoming much less important as a source of news – and by implication as a driver of traffic to news websites. Just 28% say they accessed news via Facebook in 2023 compared with 42% in 2016, based on data from 12 countries we have been tracking since 2014. </p>
<p>This decline is partly driven by Facebook pulling back from news and partly by the way that video-based networks such as YouTube and TikTok are capturing much of the attention of younger users. </p>
<p>Twitter usage is also <a href="https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/4/15/23683554/twitter-dying-elon-musk-x-company">reportedly declining</a> following the chaotic set of changes introduced by Elon Musk, even if our survey shows relatively stable weekly reach overall.</p>
<h2>New platforms</h2>
<p>TikTok is the fastest growing social network in our survey, used by 44% of 18–24 year-olds for any purpose and by 20% for news (up five percentage points compared with last year). Our survey results also show that the Chinese-owned app is most heavily used in parts of Asia, Latin America and Africa.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531621/original/file-20230613-21-1ee1k9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Graph showing which platforms and websites people have used to access news." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531621/original/file-20230613-21-1ee1k9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531621/original/file-20230613-21-1ee1k9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=265&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531621/original/file-20230613-21-1ee1k9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=265&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531621/original/file-20230613-21-1ee1k9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=265&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531621/original/file-20230613-21-1ee1k9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531621/original/file-20230613-21-1ee1k9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531621/original/file-20230613-21-1ee1k9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Which, if any, of the following have you used for news in the last week? Base: Total sample in each market ≈ 2000. Note: TikTok has been banned in India and does not operate in Hong Kong.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Oxford University</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The report also provides evidence that users of TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat tend to pay more attention to celebrities and social media influencers than they do to journalists or media companies when it comes to news topics. This marks a sharp contrast with “legacy” – or more established – social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, where news organisations still attract most attention and lead conversations.</p>
<p>Although news organisations have been <a href="https://www.journalism.co.uk/news/why-do-news-publishers-struggle-to-embrace-tiktok-/s2/a899308/">experimenting with TikTok accounts</a>, many are struggling to adapt to the more informal tone where creativity is the key to attracting an audience.</p>
<p>These shifts are additionally challenging for publishers because they often require expensive bespoke content to be created and there are few ways to monetise short form videos, with limited linking opportunities back to websites or apps.</p>
<h2>Younger people less likely to read online</h2>
<p>These platform shifts are part of a wider move away from reading and towards watching or listening to news content online. While all age groups say they still prefer to read news online because of the speed and control if offers, younger groups are more likely to express preferences for watching or listening to news content, as the chart below shows. And this translates into greater consumption of short-form videos and podcasts by this group, according to our data.</p>
<p><strong>News consumption preferences by age and media:</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531622/original/file-20230613-21-yelb28.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Graph showing young people are less likely to read and more likely to watch or listen to news." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531622/original/file-20230613-21-yelb28.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531622/original/file-20230613-21-yelb28.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=189&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531622/original/file-20230613-21-yelb28.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=189&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531622/original/file-20230613-21-yelb28.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=189&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531622/original/file-20230613-21-yelb28.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=238&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531622/original/file-20230613-21-yelb28.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=238&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531622/original/file-20230613-21-yelb28.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=238&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In thinking about your online habits around news and current affairs, which of the following statements applies best to you? Please select one. Base UK= 1740 (excl. DKs)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Oxford University</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our research over more than a decade has captured the way that all age groups have adopted digital media, alongside more familiar formats such as TV and print. But now we are seeing the emergence of a generation of social natives that are not bound by traditional definitions of news. </p>
<p>As our <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/kaleidoscope-tracking-young-peoples-relationships-news">previous research has shown</a>, younger groups expect news to be engaging, participatory and to be available on their terms – in the networks and platforms where they spend their time. Trust is not a given, it needs to be earned – as much by journalists as by any other creator of content. </p>
<p>For all the difficulties this entails – around trust, attention and business models – this is the media environment that the public is increasingly choosing for themselves. It is one where journalists and news media will need to carve out their place if they want to maintain their relevance and connection with the wider public.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207659/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The Digital News Report/Reuters Institute received funding in 2023 from the Google News Initiative, BBC News, Ofcom, the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (now the Coimisiún na Meán), the Dutch Media Authority (CvdM), the Media Industry Research Foundation of Finland, the Fritt Ord Foundation, Code for Africa, the Korea Press Foundation, Edelman UK, NHK, and the Reuters News Agency, as well as our academic sponsors at the Leibniz Institute for Media Research/ Hans Bredow Institute, the University of Navarra, Spain, the University of Canberra, Australia, the Centre d’études sur les médias, Québec, Canada, and Roskilde University, Denmark. Fundación Gabo is supporting the translation of the report into Spanish. </span></em></p>The latest data shows a dramatic generational shift in the way people consume news.Nic Newman, Senior Research Associate, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2018012023-04-28T16:10:22Z2023-04-28T16:10:22ZBuzzfeed News: sad demise of a clever, innovative site that led the way in digital journalism<p>Buzzfeed News, once a shining star of digital journalism, has announced it will <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/20/business/buzzfeed-news-shut-down.html">shut its award-winning news division</a> for good, laying off about 60 journalists in a move its founding editor, Ben Smith, described as “the end of the marriage between social media and news”.</p>
<p>Buzzfeed – for a few years regarded as a top exponent of viral news – has been struggling to maintain its buzz of late. The cheeky and provocative – if at times annoying – provider of endless listicles and outrageous clickbait headlines is reported to have <a href="https://digiday.com/media/how-the-social-traffic-that-gave-life-to-buzzfeed-news-ultimately-led-to-its-demise/#">fallen into financial difficulties</a>. </p>
<p>The site’s founder, Jonah Peretti, is reported to have told staff: “I made the decision to over-invest in BuzzFeed News because I love their work and mission so much. This made me slow to accept that the big platforms wouldn’t provide the distribution or financial support required to support premium, free journalism purpose-built for social media.”</p>
<p>A decline in traffic to the site seems to have been caused by a drop in referrals from <a href="https://digiday.com/media/how-the-social-traffic-that-gave-life-to-buzzfeed-news-ultimately-led-to-its-demise/">feeder sites such as Facebook</a>. This was itself caused by a switch to its users watching and sharing more video on sites like TikTok. Less traffic means less ad revenue. And less revenue has meant the closure of Buzzfeed’s news operation – itself a loss leader to give the site extra credibility – and a resultant loss of jobs for its journalists.</p>
<p>It’s bad news for those involved – and a tragedy for the wider digital news media. Buzzfeed News produced lots of hard-edged, scoop-heavy journalism – and it will be missed. Let’s be clear: it is the valuable news division – the one that revealed the network of detention camps in Xinjiang Province in China – that is to shut. The other stuff, the user-generated free-for-all, full of videos of <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/dailypicksandflicks/baby-penguin-being-tickled-2ghf">baby penguins being tickled</a> and listicles setting out the <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/hannahloewentheil/air-fryer-recipes-healthy-home-cooking">best method to air-fry chips</a> will remain – at least for now.</p>
<p>Buzzfeed News produced intelligent, hard-hitting journalism that frequently scooped established media organisations. It won respect and awards in equal measure.</p>
<h2>Viral content</h2>
<p>Buzzfeed pioneered the use of viral content and helped legitimise the practice as a form of journalism. The company’s <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/04/a-history-of-buzzfeed-news-part-i-2011-2017/">early success</a> – roughly a period between 2012 when it launched Buzzfeed News and early 2019 when it <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/25/business/media/buzzfeed-layoffs.html">started laying off staff</a> – inspired many other media companies to create viral content of their own.</p>
<p>In the spring of 2013, media companies were desperate to get a piece of the Buzzfeed magic. Trinity Mirror tripled its traffic practically overnight with irreverent projects such as <a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/usvsth3m/">UsVsTh3m</a> and <a href="https://martinbelam.com/2014/how-we-built-ampp3d-in-eight-weeks/">Ampp3d</a> which openly aped Buzzfeed’s irreverent and flippant style. The then editor of The Sun, David Dinsmore, said that Buzzfeed was “the best thing on the internet” and the paper launched a <a href="https://pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/nationals/sun-launches-buzzfeed-style-political-website-beyond-paywall-exclusive-cameron-cam-look-downing/">similar unpaywalled product of its own</a>. Even the BBC, in a report by the former chief executive of Sony, Sir Howard Stringer urged itself to <a href="http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/howard-stringer-report.pdf">become more distinctive</a> “like Buzzfeed”. The Independent’s <a href="https://www.indy100.com/">Indy100</a> with its diet of quizzes, nuggets of news and eye-catching images remains the closest thing to Buzzfeed in the UK media.</p>
<p>Even if the wider Buzzfeed – the user-generated entertainment division, that formed our impression of Buzzfeed, with headlines such as <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/greggdd69/14-cardboard-boxes-that-look-like-david-cameron-5v0w">10 Cardboard Boxes That Look Like David Cameron</a> and quizzes such as <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/miriamberger/which-ousted-arab-spring-ruler-are-you">Which Ousted Arab Spring Ruler Are You?</a> we should not forget the quality of its journalism. The news division did the proper journalism and won website of the year at the <a href="https://pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/nationals/financial-times-buzzfeed-and-the-guardian-among-big-winners-at-society-of-editors-press-awards-2018/">2018 Society of Editors Press Awards</a> and then <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/davidmack/pulitzer-prize-buzzfeed-news-won-china-detention-camps">scooped the Pulitzer prize</a> in 2021 with the Xinjiang detention camps exclusive.</p>
<h2>Journalistic values</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1464884917691785">study by Nanyang Technological University</a> in Singapore found that BuzzFeed News’s news values were broadly similar to those of The New York Times, with both outlets prioritising stories about government and politics. While the NYT offered more stories about crime and terrorism, Buzzfeed News offered more coverage of social issues and protests.</p>
<p>This is because Buzzfeed News was staffed by proper journalists who produced proper journalism. Heavy hitters including Emily Dugan, who won Private Eye’s coveted <a href="https://www.private-eye.co.uk/paul-foot-award/2019">Paul Foot Award in 2019</a> for her persistent campaign to reveal “the human cost of the degradation of England’s justice and legal aid system”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Buzzfeed's homepage" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523445/original/file-20230428-16-y97n1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523445/original/file-20230428-16-y97n1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523445/original/file-20230428-16-y97n1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523445/original/file-20230428-16-y97n1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523445/original/file-20230428-16-y97n1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523445/original/file-20230428-16-y97n1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523445/original/file-20230428-16-y97n1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cheeky, innovative, but not financially stable.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">chrisdorney via Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Indeed, a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1461670X.2018.1496027">2018 study by researchers at the University of Leeds</a> found that Buzzfeed News journalists had the instincts and values of traditional reporters, despite their relative youth and focus on issues relevant people aged 18 to 30. The study, which was published in the journal Journalism Studies, suggested that Buzzfeed News was not just a clickbait website, but a legitimate news organisation that employed journalists who were committed to the highest standards of their craft.</p>
<p>The closure of the news division provides a sobering reminder of the challenges facing digital journalism. The industry still struggles, two decades on, to find a sustainable business model. And no new-media organisation has been able to break the hold of the traditional news media. In Press Gazette’s <a href="https://pressgazette.co.uk/media-audience-and-business-data/media_metrics/most-popular-websites-news-world-monthly-2/">March 2023 ranking</a> of the top media sites in the world, the only “new” media site to break into the top 25 was Buzzfeed News, and that was in 25th position. A sad day for journalism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201801/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sean Dodson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Digital only commercial news websites still struggle for revenue streams.Sean Dodson, Senior Lecturer, Journalism, Leeds Beckett UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1717142021-11-17T15:15:47Z2021-11-17T15:15:47ZMedia scandals: sound and fury, but in the end, little changes<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-handling-of-the-owen-paterson-case-is-a-danger-to-the-entire-fabric-of-british-politics-171324">recent political scandal</a> in the UK involving Owen Paterson, a Conservative MP who was found to have broken parliamentary standards by repeatedly lobbying the government on behalf of two companies which paid him a large regular monthly fee, presents a classic case of a media scandal.</p>
<p>Paterson’s lobbying work was revealed by an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/05/lobbying-for-naked-bacon-how-the-owen-paterson-scandal-began">investigation in The Guardian newspaper</a> in 2019. Allegations of wrongdoing were followed by an inquiry by the parliamentary standards commissioner, Kathryn Stone, and a damning report from the House of Commons committee on standards, which recommended a 30-day suspension for the MP. </p>
<p>The Johnson government then tried to overturn the process, leading to a political and public furore, forcing a U-turn. Paterson subsequently resigned as an MP and opprobrium was heaped on the prime minister, Boris Johnson, with allegations in the media of sleaze and corruption about him and his government. </p>
<p>Spurred on by this episode, journalists dug for stories about other Conservative MPs who may have broken the rules. These included the former attorney general Geoffrey Cox, whose work for the British Virgin Islands, among other clients, has reportedly brought him <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/10/6m-in-16-years-geoffrey-coxs-outside-earnings-while-sitting-as-mp">more than £6 million</a> in his 16 years as an MP.</p>
<p>The episode played out with daily revelations in the press at a time when all eyes were on the UK as the host of the COP26 climate summit.</p>
<h2>Symbiotic relationship</h2>
<p>It is hard to imagine scandals existing without news coverage. Media attention provides the oxygen that fuels scandals. No matter if they happen in politics (<a href="https://www.history.com/topics/watergate-scandal-timeline-nixon">the Watergate Affair</a>), business (<a href="https://www.investopedia.com/updates/enron-scandal-summary/">Enron and fraud</a>), entertainment (<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-41594672">Harvey Weinstein and #Me Too</a>), sports (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/mar/09/lance-armstrong-cycling-doping-scandal">Lance Armstrong’s doping scandal</a>), science <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02989-9">Andrew Wakefield and the MMR vaccine</a>, or religion (<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-44209971">the Catholic Church and sexual abuse</a>), scandals pry open gaps between expected and actual behaviour. This is why virtually no part of society is exempt.</p>
<p>But if scandals need the media to provide oxygen, it the media also benefits from scandals, which illustrates the multiple motivations for press coverage. There are a number of reasons a news organisation might go after a scandal. Exposing wrongdoing by the powerful bolsters the credentials of the press as a public watchdog. Scandals attract eyeballs, increasing audience ratings and circulation and boosting revenues. They can also help reinforce the ideological positions of news organisations. </p>
<p>So, for instance, while the left/liberal Guardian was part of the team that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/08/key-revelations-from-the-paradise-papers">exposed tax-avoidance practices</a> of the powerful elites, the conservative Daily Telegraph vigorously pursued <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/10462871/Its-no-coincidence-the-MPs-found-guilty-of-fiddling-are-all-Labour.html">MPs’ expenses</a>, trumpeting of Labour transgressors: “The party may take the moral high ground, but lying and cheating are deep in its DNA.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A montage of UK newspaper front pages reporting on the Owen Paterson scandal." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431564/original/file-20211111-21-111iejd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431564/original/file-20211111-21-111iejd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431564/original/file-20211111-21-111iejd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431564/original/file-20211111-21-111iejd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431564/original/file-20211111-21-111iejd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431564/original/file-20211111-21-111iejd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431564/original/file-20211111-21-111iejd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What the papers said.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sometimes the news media itself becomes the centre of a scandal, engaging in dubious practices such as deception and invasion of privacy to “get the story”. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/journalism-in-the-dock-first-month-of-phone-hacking-trial-20737">phone-hacking case</a> in the UK was a prime example of this. </p>
<h2>Changing media</h2>
<p>The mainstream media remain important in breaking scandalous news and further documenting wrongdoing. But they aren’t the only gatekeepers now. “Legacy” media has been joined by specialist investigative sites, such as the <a href="https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/">Bureau of Investigative Journalism</a> and social media where people can share tips and stories.</p>
<p>As these new sources of information have added their voices, the dynamics of reporting and gatekeeping scandal stories have become more complex and fluid and the unfolding of scandals has become far more unpredictable. The pace and the content of scandals can rapidly and unexpectedly shift as various different voices introduce new revelations and broadcast to large new and motivated audiences, sending stories “viral” when people pass them on to their friends. </p>
<p>Accordingly, scandal management has had to change. People and institutions implicated in scandals have to confront a more chaotic information ecology to control messages and provide tight, well-managed responses. </p>
<p>The digital revolution has also brought with it new ways of finding, processing and reporting sensitive information with scandalous potential. Journalists and citizens have learned to explore digital data to reveal wrongdoing. As digital footprints can be traced and reconstructed, professional and citizen reporters can scrutinise people and institutions to shed light on their political and financial records as well as their behaviour and statements. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432368/original/file-20211117-17-1vj8sqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Front page of The Guardian with revelations about the Edward Snowden affair." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432368/original/file-20211117-17-1vj8sqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432368/original/file-20211117-17-1vj8sqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432368/original/file-20211117-17-1vj8sqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432368/original/file-20211117-17-1vj8sqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432368/original/file-20211117-17-1vj8sqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1074&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432368/original/file-20211117-17-1vj8sqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1074&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432368/original/file-20211117-17-1vj8sqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1074&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Guardian was one of several news organisations around the world that collaborated on the Snowden revelations.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Often they set up collaborative platforms to pool their resources in researching stories. The emergence of new types of journalistic collaboration led to the revelations about the surveillance state by former NSA employee <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/edward-snowden-6189">Edward Snowden</a> and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/six-things-a-tax-haven-expert-learned-from-the-panama-papers-57308">Panama papers</a> exposure, which were investigated by an international group of newspapers and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.</p>
<p>But while their newsmaking power continues to grow, revelations by these non-traditional platforms need support from established news organisations and digital platforms with large followings. </p>
<p>The big media organisations are more likely to have the resources, expertise and social prominence to get the stories in front of large audiences. This in turn will spark further revelations as a story gathers pace.</p>
<h2>Heroes and villains</h2>
<p>Media scandals overwhelmingly focus on flawed people, rather than on the structural forces that allow, foster and condone their transgressions. Individual peccadilloes are more likely to attract attention than systemic social problems: corruption, wrongdoing, institutional racism, violence, sexism and corporate abuses. </p>
<p>Media narratives tend to accentuate this problem as they tend to offer simplified stories about heroes and villains instead of deeper examination of social problems that have led to the scandal and all-too often remain after the noise has died down.</p>
<p>The Paterson scandal is following this classic path. Inevitably as soon as the people portrayed as villains are taken down, it will be back to business as usual. The scandal may lead to minor changes in the way the standards committee investigates MPs. But if major structural changes had taken place following the <a href="https://www.britpolitics.co.uk/uk-parliament-cash-for-questions-1994/">1994 cash for questions scandal</a>, this latest scandal would not have occurred. </p>
<p>But it didn’t, so decades later the watchword for public officials remains: don’t get caught.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171714/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Owen Paterson affair was typical of a media scandal,Howard Tumber, Professor of Journalism and Communication, City, University of LondonSilvio Waisbord, Director and Professor School of Media and Public Affairs, George Washington UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1575162021-03-24T12:19:12Z2021-03-24T12:19:12ZFuture of journalism: study explains why some news stories get more clicks from social media than others<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391142/original/file-20210323-21-dxuy4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C5444%2C3586&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">To click or not to click?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hadrian via Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Few industries have suffered more disruption from the internet than the news media. Over two decades or more, journalism has been hit by a “<a href="https://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2018/02/16/the-perfect-storm-thats-blowing-up-media">perfect storm</a>” due to the loss of geographical monopolies that national and regional news organisations once enjoyed as well as the emergence of amateur content producers such as bloggers.</p>
<p>Perhaps what is the most disruptive element of this assault on news organisations is the “<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346394853_The_Unbundling_of_Journalism">unbundling</a>” of content production and content aggregation – or, in layperson’s terms, the fact that most people aren’t getting their news directly from news sites but via social media or other places on the internet. </p>
<p>This has led to more than a decade of argument between media companies and news aggregators such as Apple News, Google and Facebook. News aggregators tend to post headlines and short extracts of articles, linking through to the site on which they were originally published. Every click brings <a href="https://www.journalism.org/2014/03/13/social-search-direct/">additional traffic</a> to the news producer’s site – and the all-important advertising revenue.</p>
<p>Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch has been particularly outspoken on news aggregators, referring to them as <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/online/rupert-murdoch-begins-blocking-new-aggregators-search-engines/">“parasites”</a>. His company News Corporation and other media organisations <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2009/apr/06/google-wallstreetjournal">have accused them</a> of preventing readers from going to their sites – “stealing” advertising revenues by “free riding” on their content. More than 11 years ago, in an interview with Sky News Australia, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2009/nov/09/murdoch-google">news mogul said</a> he would consider removing the content from his news sites from Google’s search index. It never happened.</p>
<p>In February, the Australian government <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-56163550">passed</a> legislation, the first of its kind in the world aiming to make the likes of Apple, Google and Facebook pay for news content. After a short stand-off between Facebook and Australian news organisations, during which Facebook refused to post any Australian news content on subscribers’ newsfeeds, a deal was struck, setting up a <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Revised%20explanatory%20memorandum.pdf">bargaining code</a> for publishers and aggregators.</p>
<h2>Symbiotic relationship</h2>
<p>A central debate on news aggregators is whether they are harmful to news producers by <a href="https://www.tse-fr.eu/sites/default/files/TSE/documents/doc/wp/2018/wp_tse_912.pdf">raking off advertising revenues</a> or beneficial by reducing search time and costs for consumers. Our <a href="https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/mnsc.2015.2237">research examined</a> whether news producers and aggregators can have a beneficial symbiotic relationship. We developed news aggregator apps for the iPhone and iPad and carried out our own field experiments.</p>
<p>The apps aggregated news from 13 major news publishers in Switzerland (with their permission) and were available for download by anyone in that country. The two-week field experiment with the iPhone app involved more than 2,000 users who viewed extracts of almost 5,000 articles a total of more than 32,000 times. The iPad app ran for 16 weeks, during which we had close to 1,400 users viewing extracts of almost 30,000 articles more than 65,000 times.</p>
<p>We varied the amount of text in the extracts, and experimented by accompanying some extracts with an image. We also looked at whether it made a difference if there were a number of other competing articles on the same issue. What we wanted to find out was how likely readers were in various different scenarios to click through to read the full article at the news publisher’s site.</p>
<h2>How the app works</h2>
<p>The default length of the snippet of text in our experiment is 245 characters – which we found was the average number of characters of the snippets in Google News. </p>
<p>We then reduced or increased the number of characters in increments of 20%. The longest snippet we used was 343 characters (+40%) because of the constraint of our copyright agreements with the news providers. The shortest snippet on our iPhone app is 98 characters (-60%). In our iPad app, we sometimes show no snippet at all (only the headline and corresponding image). </p>
<p>We found that as the extracts grew longer, people were less likely to click through to the article on its original site. It appeared that an article’s headline could often provide all the information the audience needed. Any additional information provided by the aggregator, in the form of snippets of text or images, actually decreased click-through rates.</p>
<p>There is massive difference in click-through from iPhone and iPad. The iPad has a richer interface and is the closest to a web browser – which means the limitations of the mobile phone interface may increase the click-through rate. Nevertheless, decline in click-through rates is consistent across both platforms.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the opposite happens when the snippets of several related articles of the same story compete for readers’ attention. Aggregators tend to group these snippets together, which creates direct competition for readers. We found that in cases like this, 30% of readers do not click through to any article and 66% of readers click through to only one article – paradoxically, it’s the snippet with longer text and accompanying images that gets the clicks.</p>
<p>The results of this experiment present a dilemma for news publishers. On the one hand they know that the more information they allow an aggregator to reproduce in terms of text and images, the less likely readers are to visit their site. On the other hand, by limiting the amount of text or images that an aggregator is allowed to reproduce they risk losing out to their competitors who might not follow the same strategy. </p>
<p>Our research leaves us with two insights: one is that news organisations will need to keep experimenting with ways to get people to their sites. The other is that the news industry as a whole needs to negotiate with news aggregators to ensure fair treatment for all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157516/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Juliana Sutanto does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>News organisations are wracking their brains on how to get people to their sites.Juliana Sutanto, Professor of Information Systems, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1560742021-03-01T11:42:10Z2021-03-01T11:42:10ZJournalism: digital giants paying for content is good news, but will it support local press?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386548/original/file-20210225-13-1ncaiim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4752%2C3158&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Local stories often find their way into national papers.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andrew J Shearer via Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>That the internet has all but destroyed the business model that has always supported journalism is not news. But what has made the news around the world recently is that the Australian government has attempted to do something about it.</p>
<p>It has <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/australia-passes-law-forcing-google-and-facebook-to-pay-news-publications/">passed a new law</a> forcing organisations such as Facebook and Google, which make a great deal of money out of carrying news material on their platforms, to share their advertising revenue with media organisations. </p>
<p>Facebook incurred a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56168843">worldwide backlash</a> by temporarily blocking all news sites for users in Australia. Google, meanwhile, took the opposite tack by signing early agreements with the country’s key media players. Facebook has now also pledged to strike deals with Australia’s leading news companies in return for allowing its users to post their content on its pages.</p>
<p>But if the purpose of the new law is to serve democracy by supporting public interest journalism, how well will it work?</p>
<p>The wholesale movement of revenue from media outlets employing professional journalists to content platforms which produce no original stories is a <a href="https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/report-predicts-five-years-of-steep-global-decline-for-newspaper-industry-revenu-print-and-online/">major international problem</a>. Social media doesn’t just reduce funding for professional journalism, it also enables the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/fake-news-33438">spread of fake news</a> that rapidly fills the gap left behind. It’s a problem that has been obscured by social media’s many other issues: bullying, use by criminal groups, and disturbing, exploitative, violent and pornographic content. But in fact, how advertising income breaks down has much deeper implications.</p>
<p>Digital advertising spend is <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/283009/digital-advertising-spending-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/">continuously increasing</a>, but about 40% goes to Google, with Facebook in second place at about 22% and closing the gap. Meanwhile, local newspapers have watched as their property advertising has disappeared to Rightmove and their classified ads to Ebay and Facebook. As for job ads, which were such good moneyspinners for local and national newspapers, they have migrated mainly to CV upload sites, such as LinkedIn. </p>
<p>To maintain visibility in the new digital world, news organisations have to be present on social media platforms – which simply means more eyeballs for the likes of Facebook and Twitter. Deprived of advertising revenue, traditional news organisations are in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/may/07/read-all-about-it-how-local-papers-decline-is-starving-communities-of-news">seemingly unstoppable decline</a> – not just in the UK, but <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2017-12/Local%20Journalism%20-%20the%20decline%20of%20newspapers%20and%20the%20rise%20of%20digital%20media.pdf">around the world</a>. In the UK, <a href="https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/uk-local-newspaper-closures-at-least-265-local-newspaper-titles-gone-since-2005-but-pace-of-decline-has-slowed/">265 titles have closed since 2005</a> – with COVID-19 proving the final nail in the coffin for some.</p>
<p>The Australian initiative attempts to mitigate against tech giants siphoning off all digital revenue – but a major and valid criticism is that the deal appears to be skewed in favour of large media organisations. Funds also need to be made available to support independent local news organisations. The imbalance is already visible.</p>
<p>Google preempted the new law by reaching agreements <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-56163550">to pay seven</a> Australian media organisations, including Rupert Murdoch’s considerable newspaper and TV empire. But there’s concern that the grassroots organisations that provide most public service news are <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-google-is-now-funnelling-millions-into-media-outlets-as-facebook-pulls-news-for-australia-155468">unlikely to benefit</a> without the massive influence of the nationals.</p>
<p>Google has also agreed to pay for use of news snippets in Google News search results from <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-google-publishers/google-and-french-publishers-sign-agreement-over-copyright-idUSKBN29Q0SC">some publishers in France</a> – but so far only to a handful of major national organisations as well as the international news agency Reuters. Again, the agreement looks set to benefit the biggest players the most, since one of the criteria is monthly traffic. Reuters’ French rival AFP has <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-google-france-copyright-exclusive-idUSKBN2AC27N">already complained</a>.</p>
<h2>Blackout on local news</h2>
<p>Why does this matter? <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44688274">Research has shown</a> clear links between a loss of journalism – particularly at local level – and a loss of public participation and trust in democracy. The watchdog role of the local press drives up standards in many other unexpected ways.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/652903">the US</a>, congressmen in areas not covered by a local newspaper do less to represent their communities in the absence of local watchdogs – they are more likely to toe the party to line than rebel, and do less constituency work, while their areas get less federal funding. Where local newsrooms have had severe staff cuts, there’s also <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1078087419838058?journalCode=uarb">less competition</a> in mayoral elections.</p>
<p>There’s evidence from <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9442.2010.01633.x">Norway</a> and <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11127-017-0444-x">Japan</a> that councils in areas with high local paper circulations are more efficient. The decline of local newspapers and reduced coverage of local politics has even been blamed for <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-the-decline-of-local-newspapers-exacerbates-polarization">political polarisation</a>, particularly in poorer areas. </p>
<p>And it’s not just about politics. The <a href="https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2019/03/is-this-all-the-local-news/">Index on Censorship</a> has reported on the problems of reduced local newsrooms trying to report accurately while public bodies, including health and education trusts, employ highly paid marketing teams to protect their image; and local social media groups share information that often turns out to be false.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A newsagent surrounded by magazines and local papers." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386716/original/file-20210226-19-1i8rn9p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386716/original/file-20210226-19-1i8rn9p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386716/original/file-20210226-19-1i8rn9p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386716/original/file-20210226-19-1i8rn9p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386716/original/file-20210226-19-1i8rn9p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386716/original/file-20210226-19-1i8rn9p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386716/original/file-20210226-19-1i8rn9p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Local news is the lifeblood of its community.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anton Havelaar via Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Fewer local journalists means less coverage of court cases and inquests. In my own research into coverage of coroners’ courts, we found evidence of “news deserts”: areas where <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17512786.2020.1776143?scroll=top&needAccess=true">inquests were never reported</a> due to staff cuts and patchy information from courts. Editors told me it was increasingly difficult to contact the police directly, as contacts were funnelled through police “newsrooms” – previously press offices – which now aim to prioritise good news stories about police successes.</p>
<p>This has serious consequences. The importance of the reporting of public inquests has been highlighted by the work of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-55986827">George Julian</a>, who live-tweets inquests of people with learning difficulties and autism. They typically die two decades earlier than people without these special needs, often because of poorly managed care which is only highlighted during the inquest process. But if there is no-one there to cover the inquest, there is little public pressure for change.</p>
<h2>Local journalism costs money too</h2>
<p>The moves by the Australian government are a step in the right direction but there is a risk that the negotiating system will let the big players grab the newly released revenue, leaving high-quality, professional local journalism high and dry again.</p>
<p>This is actually in nobody’s interests. National news organisations have long relied on the local press to act as a grassroots army of reporters. Many national stories began as a local paper’s front page, and many great reporters started out on the local press. Self-interest actually should dictate that they use their power to help their smaller colleagues, but it seems likely that, without a keen oversight by the reviewing body a year from now, short-termism will ensure they continue to carve out the biggest slice of the pie.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156074/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amy Binns does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Local newspapers are a key part of the ecology of journalism.Amy Binns, Senior Lecturer, Journalism and Digital Communication, University of Central LancashireLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1375442020-05-05T20:41:30Z2020-05-05T20:41:30ZHow artificial intelligence can save journalism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332550/original/file-20200504-83779-1j38ie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=126%2C63%2C3316%2C1994&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Newsrooms need to take advantage of what AI can offer and come up with new a business model</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented crisis in journalism that could decimate media organizations around the world.</p>
<p>The future of journalism — and its survival — could lie in artificial intelligence (AI). AI refers “to intelligent machines that learn from experience and perform tasks like humans,” according to Francesco Marconi, a professor of journalism at Columbia University in New York, who has just published a book on the subject: <em><a href="https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Francesco_Marconi_Newsmakers?id=1MqWDwAAQBAJ">Newsmakers, Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Journalism</a></em>.</p>
<p>Marconi was head of the media lab at the <em>Wall Street Journal</em> and the <em>Associated Press</em>, one of the largest news organizations in the world. His thesis is clear and incontrovertible: the journalism world is not keeping pace with the evolution of new technologies. So, newsrooms need to take advantage of what AI can offer and come up with new a business model.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1255534667253587971"}"></div></p>
<p>For Marconi, journalists and media owners are missing out and AI needs to be at the heart of journalism’s business model in the future. As a <a href="https://professeurs.uqam.ca/professeur/white.patrick/">professor of journalism at the Université du Québec à Montréal</a>, I have been closely following the evolution of this profession since 1990, and I am mostly in agreement with him. </p>
<p>In Canada, <em><a href="https://www.thecanadianpress.com/">The Canadian Press</a></em> news agency is, for example, one of the rare media outlets to use AI in its newsrooms. It has developed a system to speed up translations based on AI. The <a href="https://www.afp.com/en/agency/medialab">_Agence France-Presse</a>_ news agency (AFP) also uses AI to detect doctored photos.</p>
<h2>AI does not replace journalists</h2>
<p>Artificial intelligence is not there to replace journalists or eliminate jobs. Marconi believes that only eight to 12 per cent of reporters’ current tasks will be taken over by machines, which will in fact reorient editors and journalists towards value-added content: long-form journalism, feature interviews, analysis, data-driven journalism and investigative journalism.</p>
<p>At the moment, AI <a href="https://whatsnewinpublishing.com/ai-in-the-newsroom-robots-are-now-helping-drive-up-subscriptions/">robots perform basic tasks</a> like writing two to six paragraphs on sports scores and quarterly earnings reports at the <em>Associated Press</em>, election results in Switzerland and Olympic results at the <em>Washington Post</em>. The outcomes are convincing, but they also show the limits of AI.</p>
<p>AI robots analyzing large databases can send journalists at <em>Bloomberg News</em> an alert as soon as a trend or anomaly emerges from big data.</p>
<p>AI can also save reporters a lot of time by transcribing audio and video interviews. AFP has a tool for that. The same is true for major reports on pollution or violence, which rely on vast databases. The machines can analyze complex data in no time at all.</p>
<p>Afterwards, the journalist does his or her essential work of fact-checking, analyzing, contextualizing and gathering information. AI can hardly replace this. In this sense, humans must remain central to the entire journalistic process.</p>
<h2>A broken business model</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Newsmakers-Artificial-Intelligence-Future-Journalism-ebook/dp/B07RG8FSC6/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Francesco+Marconi+Newsmakers&qid=1588167092&sr=8-1">Marconi is quite right when he explains that the media must develop a paid subscription model</a>, get closer to their communities with even more relevant content, develop new products (newsletters, events, podcasts, videos) and new content. AI can facilitate some of this by generating personalized news: recommendations for readers, for example.</p>
<p>In this sense, AI is part of a new business model based on breaking down media silos. There needs to be a symbiosis in the sense of establishing a “close collaboration” between the editorial staff and other media teams such as engineers, computer scientists, statisticians, sales or marketing staff.</p>
<p>In a newsroom, more than ever before, databases must be used to find stories that are relevant to readers, listeners, viewers and internet users.</p>
<p>And there are already various <a href="https://www.crowdtangle.com/">AI tools available </a>to detect trends or hot topics on the internet and social media. These tools can also help newsrooms distribute content.</p>
<h2>Beware of bias</h2>
<p>Of course, newsroom size must be taken into account. A small weekly or a hyper-local media organization may not have the means to act quickly in adopting AI. But for the others, it’s important to start taking action right away. Journalists need to be better trained and begin to work with start-ups and universities to get the best out of this. AI is not a fad. It is here to stay.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328213/original/file-20200415-153334-1xc9z3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328213/original/file-20200415-153334-1xc9z3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328213/original/file-20200415-153334-1xc9z3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328213/original/file-20200415-153334-1xc9z3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328213/original/file-20200415-153334-1xc9z3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328213/original/file-20200415-153334-1xc9z3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328213/original/file-20200415-153334-1xc9z3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Journalism is not keeping up with new technologies, writes Francesco Marconi in <em>Newsmakers, Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Journalism</em>.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Take the current example of COVID-19. This is an opportunity to analyze public health data to make connections, analyze and dig into the data neighbourhood by neighbourhood and street by street. AI can help with that. But it takes well-trained data reporters to do this work.</p>
<p>One of the dangers of AI, on the other hand, is algorithm bias. Because algorithms are designed by humans, there will <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/bias-in-criminal-risk-scores-is-mathematically-inevitable-researchers-say">always be biases that can alter data analysis and lead to serious consequences</a>. And human verification of content before publication will always remain a safeguard against errors.</p>
<p>AI has also helped developing systems for detecting fake videos (deepfakes) and fake news, which are of course supported by experienced journalists from <em>Reuters</em> and <em>AFP</em>, for example. </p>
<p>In this sense, the transformation of newsrooms is only just beginning and Marconi’s essay is a must-read for identifying survival scenarios for media organizations and journalists. Because that’s what it’s all about. We need to better equip our newsrooms and completely rethink the workflow to achieve better collaboration and better content that will attract new and paying subscribers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137544/count.gif" alt="La Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patrick White ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Journalism is not keeping pace with the evolution of new technologies. Newsrooms need to take advantage of what AI can offer and come up with a new business model.Patrick White, professeur de journalisme , Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1302292020-01-20T14:45:04Z2020-01-20T14:45:04ZTelegraph’s new tactic: will offering a Fitbit be enough to attract new readers?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310900/original/file-20200120-69606-ip9bok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C33%2C4466%2C2465&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lenscap Photography</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The news that UK printed newspapers are <a href="https://pressgazette.co.uk/national-newspaper-abcs-full-figures-december-2019-observer/">continuing to lose circulation</a> comes as no surprise, extending – as it does – a trend that has been gathering pace for two decades after digital media began to cannibalise print sales.</p>
<p>But the latest release of Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) circulation figures came with a postscript. The ABC <a href="https://www.abc.org.uk/newslink/113-abc-news/909-abc-statement-regarding-the-telegraph">announced</a> it had been informed that the Telegraph Media Group would no longer take part in the ABC’s audit that, for decades, has been the Holy Grail for the industry and advertisers.</p>
<p>The Telegraph justified its decision by explaining that the ABC metric was not how it measured its success. In its <a href="https://corporate.telegraph.co.uk/2020/01/16/company-announcement/">press release</a> the company said it was focused on a subscriber-first strategy underpinned by “long term investment in digital transformation”.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The ABC metric is not the key metric behind our subscription strategy and not how we measure our success.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What is surprising isn’t The Telegraph’s decision to leave, but that it took this long for a national heavyweight to make this move, given the growing and increasing reliance on digital in today’s multi-channel news consumption marketplace. Of course, while The Telegraph’s stated aim is <a href="https://www.newsworks.org.uk/news-and-opinion/the-telegraph-launches-new-vision-to-reach-1-million-paying-subscribers-">10 million registrations and one million paying subscribers by 2023</a>, transforming the available digital eyeballs into long-term paying subscribers won’t be easy.</p>
<p>Inevitably, more publishers are trying to charge for content to sustain their newsrooms in the face of falling advertising revenue. But the <a href="http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/">Reuters Digital News Report 2019</a> highlighted the battle they face, revealing only 7% of those surveyed in the UK said they had committed to ongoing payments for online news in January/February 2019. Compare that to top-of-the-league Norway where it was a heady 27% of those sampled.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310876/original/file-20200120-69547-i5ss8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310876/original/file-20200120-69547-i5ss8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310876/original/file-20200120-69547-i5ss8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310876/original/file-20200120-69547-i5ss8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310876/original/file-20200120-69547-i5ss8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310876/original/file-20200120-69547-i5ss8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310876/original/file-20200120-69547-i5ss8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310876/original/file-20200120-69547-i5ss8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">UK national newspaper circulation December 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ABC</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Interestingly, The Telegraph reported <a href="https://corporate.telegraph.co.uk/2020/01/16/company-announcement/">44% growth in digital subscriptions in 2019</a>, taking it to 213,868 and for the first time exceeding its 209,443 print subscriptions. Last month the Telegraph achieved record subscriptions and a record number via mobile. Those encouraging statistics may have prompted the decision to leave the ABC.</p>
<p>The group is aggressively marketing its digital subscriptions. Currently enlisting for an annual <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/customer/subscribe/">high-end Telegraph digital subscription</a> – which offers access to all articles on telegraph.co.uk and digital editions of the paper each day to read on a mobile device (£200) – comes with a sweetener of a high-end Fitbit which is worth close to £200. That’s attractive. The challenge will be persuading these subscribers to stick around after 12 months.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310892/original/file-20200120-69547-ij0u5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310892/original/file-20200120-69547-ij0u5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310892/original/file-20200120-69547-ij0u5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310892/original/file-20200120-69547-ij0u5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310892/original/file-20200120-69547-ij0u5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310892/original/file-20200120-69547-ij0u5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310892/original/file-20200120-69547-ij0u5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A new digital strategy for The Telegraph?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">urbanbuzz via Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Guardian has shown how brokering these new relationships (as well as pursuing an aggressive cost-cutting strategy) can be effective, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/gnm-press-office/2019/may/01/guardian-media-group-announces-outcome-of-three-year-turnaround-strategy">announcing last May</a> it had broken even at operating EBITDA level. The group’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/gnm-press-office/2016/jan/25/the-guardian-outlines-three-year-business-plan-to-staff">three-year-strategy</a> reduced costs by 20% (partly as a result of redundancies) and boosted the newspaper’s digital presence, with an increase in its total monthly page views from 790 million in April 2016 to 1.35 billion page views in March 2019.</p>
<p>Importantly, the Guardian revealed that 55% of its revenues were now digital, highlighting “good growth in digital advertising, digital subscriptions and reader contributions”. And it confirmed more than <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/gnm-press-office/2019/may/01/guardian-media-group-announces-outcome-of-three-year-turnaround-strategy">655,000 monthly paying “supporters”</a>, plus an additional 300,000 people who had made a one-off contribution in the previous year under its <a href="https://support.theguardian.com/uk/contribute">“Support the Guardian’s journalism” scheme</a>. </p>
<h2>Print v digital</h2>
<p>The downward trend in print circulation that all publishers are battling has gathered pace in the past decade. The <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/research-and-data/tv-radio-and-on-demand/news-media/news-consumption">Ofcom News Consumption Report</a> for 2019 released last summer reported <a href="https://whatsnewinpublishing.com/how-people-in-the-uk-are-accessing-news-6-key-findings">a fall of 52.5% for UK national newspaper print circulation</a>, down from 22 million in 2010 to 10.4 million in 2018.</p>
<p>And as anyone working in newspapers knows, online audiences have become increasingly important, as well as facing head-on the challenge from social media as a news source, with nearly half of all adults in the Reuters report saying they <a href="http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/">use it for news</a>.</p>
<p>Inevitably, as online audiences get bigger, the drive to grow digital advertising revenues gathers pace. Advertising clients already expect to be quoted digital success figures, from the number of page views a site receives each month to unique user numbers or the average engagement time.</p>
<p>And, as many in the industry agree, focusing on growing audience numbers is just as important as managing newspaper sales numbers to maintain the ABC figures. As one senior newspaper executive said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s a bold move [by The Telegraph] to step away from the ABCs but their decision to focus on digital registered users and online subscribers is a strong nod towards their belief in the growing success of digital journalism.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Of course as The Sun and The Daily Mail vie for top slot it suits both to stay within the current ABCs. There’s bragging rights at stake. But, for The Telegraph, where was the value in staying? In December 2002 it sold around 933,525 papers each day. After 17 years, showing the seismic shift seen across the industry, its total average print circulation for December 2019 was 317,817, down 12% year on year.</p>
<p>The Times fared better in the latest audit, but only just, dropping by 11% to 370,005 with 53,284 bulk sales – meaning those given away in hotels, airports and the like. Over the same period, the Financial Times fell 10% to 162,429, with 29,783 bulk sales and the Guardian’s circuation fell by 5% to 133,412.</p>
<p>It was the same story for the Sunday “quality” rivals. Again the Telegraph stable experienced the highest percentage fall, the Sunday Telegraph’s 12% drop to 248,288 was 3% worse than The Sunday Times whose 9% took them to 648,812, with 50,808 bulks, while the Observer had the greatest cause for encouragement with an overall fall of only 2% and figures of 163,449.</p>
<h2>It was the Sun wot won it – just</h2>
<p>It remains to be seen if ABC methodology will change. The ABC statement was conciliatory, acknowledging the Telegraph’s wish to promote “growing subscription numbers across print and digital”, but adding the best route would be “an industry-agreed ABC standard”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310894/original/file-20200120-69535-19u1xmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310894/original/file-20200120-69535-19u1xmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310894/original/file-20200120-69535-19u1xmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310894/original/file-20200120-69535-19u1xmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310894/original/file-20200120-69535-19u1xmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=676&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310894/original/file-20200120-69535-19u1xmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=676&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310894/original/file-20200120-69535-19u1xmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=676&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Sun newspaper’s circulation fell by 13% during 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michaelpuche via Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>ABC <a href="https://www.abc.org.uk/newslink/113-abc-news/909-abc-statement-regarding-the-telegraph">said it was</a>: “open to working with the Telegraph, as with all publishers, on developing metrics which support their strategies”.</p>
<p>Interestingly, December’s traditional ABC figures were accompanied by a new metric – measuring <a href="https://www.abc.org.uk/newslink/113-abc-news/908-abc-figures-show-1-68-billion-national-newspapers-circulated-in-2019">total circulated copies</a>, which refers to “the complete number of copies distributed by media owners” and is calculated by multiplying each title’s number of issues by their monthly ABC figure, then aggregating across the year.</p>
<p>Under that metric, The Telegraph ranked fifth in national daily newspapers with 97.1 million for January to December 2019 – only beaten among daily broadsheets by The Times, which sold 115.5 million copies. Achieving a new industry-agreed ABC standard to capture subscription numbers across print and digital would be progress, albeit long overdue – the only surprise is it hasn’t happened sooner.</p>
<p>But until the ABC metrics change, the most fascinating aspect will be whether The Sun can retain the accolade of the UK’s top-selling newspaper. With the red top newspaper’s total average circulation of 1,215,852 declining 13% year-on-year – compared to a fall for the Daily Mail of just 7% to 1,141,178, there well be change at the top in 2020.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130229/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mary Williams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s a bold move, but publishers are increasingly desperate to attract digital readers to offset the fall in print sales.Mary Williams, Principal Lecturer in Journalism, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1277682019-11-27T15:03:04Z2019-11-27T15:03:04ZHere is what policymakers can do for Europe’s news media<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303741/original/file-20191126-112526-bnnos3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C8%2C5676%2C2782&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">P Gregory via Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Europe is home to some of the most impressive and innovative news media in the world, from digital media such as <a href="https://dennikn.sk/">Dennik N</a> in Slovakia and <a href="https://www.mediapart.fr/en/english">MediaPart</a> in France to legacy media such as the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/">BBC</a> in the UK and <a href="https://www.dn.se/nyheter/summary-in-english/">Dagens Nyheter</a> in Sweden. </p>
<p>But the continent is also plagued with increasingly serious threats to media freedom and tremendous pressure on the business of news, problems that are compounded by a policy and regulatory environment still stuck in the offline past.</p>
<p>To develop media policies fit for our online future, policymakers in Brussels and in member states urgently need to act to ensure the freedom, funding, and future of independent professional journalism in Europe.</p>
<p>Every day we delay, free speech and media freedom is further undermined in some parts of the European Union. Almost 90 million people across the European Union live in member states with <a href="https://rsf.org/en/ranking">significant media freedom problems</a>. </p>
<p>Every day that passes, the legacy business models that fund most professional journalism decay further, as the European newspaper industry that provides the majority of investment in news currently see revenues decline <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/risj-review/what-can-be-done-digital-media-policy-options-europe-and-beyond">about €2.5 million per day</a> as print readers die off and publishers find digital media a less lucrative business.</p>
<p>So what can policymakers do to help create a more enabling environment for independent professional journalism going forward? That’s the question we have addressed in <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/risj-review/what-can-be-done-digital-media-policy-options-europe-and-beyond">a new report</a> published by the <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/">Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism</a> in which we reviewed a wide range of policy options.</p>
<p>We have not identified a silver bullet and we do not believe there is any. Those looking for an easy solution will not find it. But that does not mean that there are no options. Here are the most important ones in order of priority.</p>
<h2>Press freedom</h2>
<p>Without freedom, no amount of funding or investment in the future will ensure independent professional journalism. Given the threats to free expression and media freedom in some European Union member states – ranging from the murder of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/daphne-caruana-galizia">Daphne Caruana Galizia</a> in Malta and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-50127679">Jan Kuciak</a> in Slovakia to worrying trends towards <a href="https://www.mdif.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/MDIF-Report-Media-Capture-in-Europe.pdf">media capture</a>, where news media lose their independence and become beholden to governments and oligarchs – it is clear these issues have to be addressed first in these countries before any other measures can find long-term success.</p>
<p>A good first step would be to close the gap between what elected officials say they are going to do and what governments actually implement. This would simply be about insisting governments honour their commitments to <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/treaty/teu_2012/art_2/oj">Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union</a> and to the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/ccpr.aspx">International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights</a>. </p>
<p>A second step could be to ensure they face consequences if they do not by linking access to EU funds to performance in an annual rule of law review that includes a focus on free expression and media freedom. If threats as primal as the murder of journalists and problems as basic as the erosion of fundamental rights and media freedom are not addressed, there is little hope for European democracy in the long term.</p>
<h2>Funding</h2>
<p>Without funding, independent professional journalism will simply wither away. Given the rapid decline of legacy media businesses such as print newspapers, this funding will have to come from a combination of a new, digital business of news and various forms of public support – including for independent public service media and non-profit media.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303994/original/file-20191127-180279-10cn4wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303994/original/file-20191127-180279-10cn4wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303994/original/file-20191127-180279-10cn4wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303994/original/file-20191127-180279-10cn4wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303994/original/file-20191127-180279-10cn4wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303994/original/file-20191127-180279-10cn4wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303994/original/file-20191127-180279-10cn4wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Governments need to do more to support new digital news ventures, both private and public sector.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">GaudiLab via Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although private sector news media have delivered the majority of investment in journalism in the past and, in most cases, will continue to do so in the future, the risk of market failure, especially among some local and niche audiences, is significant. This threatens local news provision and the diversity of news available.</p>
<p>Here are the three most promising options we have reviewed. First, existing forms of support for private sector media will need to be reviewed and reformed. This means extending existing tax breaks from print to digital news as well as adopting forms of direct support for independent private sector news media <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_13_1121">such as exists in Denmark</a>).</p>
<p>Second, there needs to be a broad recognition of the role that genuinely independent, adequately funded public service media operating across all platforms can have – provided they have a clear role and remit, and avoid crowding out private competitors. Finally, rapid reform is needed to facilitate the creation and funding of non-profit news media.</p>
<h2>Future for democracy</h2>
<p>Without a future for independent professional journalism, we risk leaving European democracy worse than we inherited it. Forging that future is primarily a task for the industry itself, a task premised on developing forms of journalism and media formats and products that people find genuinely compelling and valuable.</p>
<p>We have already begun to see some impressive efforts, even as the pressures both reporters and news media businesses face intensify. European journalists have developed many innovative formats for digital journalism in recent years and, according to data from the <a href="https://www.wan-ifra.org/reports/2019/10/28/world-press-trends-2019">World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers</a>, digital revenues in the European newspaper industry have grown on average by 10% a year between 2015 and 2019, even as print declined.</p>
<p>But policymakers can play a role as well. The new commission should pursue three goals. It needs to ensure that all players in the digital marketplace compete on a level playing field. It has to ensure a more accountable, intelligible and transparent media environment by ensuring more effective multi-stakeholder oversight, investing in media literacy, and ensuring independent researchers have access to data. And it needs to provide public funding for innovation in journalism and news media to help with the transition. </p>
<p>These options will not be easy or cheap. But securing the future of news media is a question that concerns all of Europe and doing so will have to be an integral part of the “<a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_19_5542">new push for European democracy</a>” outlined by the incoming president of the EU commission, Ursula von der Leyen.</p>
<p>US-based technology companies, including both <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2018/03/google-announces-a-300m-google-news-initiative-though-this-isnt-about-giving-out-grants-directly-to-newsrooms-like-it-does-in-europe/">Google</a> and <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/01/facebook-is-committing-300-million-to-support-news-with-an-emphasis-on-local/">Facebook</a>, have promised hundreds of millions of euros to support innovation in journalism. Surely the European Union can at least match this.</p>
<h2>No alternative</h2>
<p>Holding governments to account if they ignore the commitments they have made to protecting fundamental rights is hard, but necessary. Rolling out support systems for journalism and news media will cost money. But given the European Union’s <a href="https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/eu-budgetary-system/eu-annual-budget/2019-budget/">budget of more than €160 billion</a> – and member states combined public expenditure of more than €7 trillion – investing in independent journalism and free media is essentially a question of political priorities. And such investments could deliver a huge return: a more informed public, greater resilience to misinformation and more accountability for both public and private power.</p>
<p>So it is possible. And something needs to be done. If Europe acts while the United States remains paralysed by partisanship and the Chinese government pursues a very different vision for the future, this is its chance to show what democratic media policy based on upholding our principles and investing in the public good can look like. The sincerity of policymakers’ commitment to that will be measured by their actions, not their words.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127768/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rasmus Kleis Nielsen is Director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. The Institute is part of the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford, based on core funding from the Thomson Reuters Foundation, and further support from more than thirty other funders. Some of these funders are mentioned in the report this piece draws on, including media organisations like the BBC and Dagens Nyheter, media regulators like BAI, Commissariaat voor de Media, and Ofcom (all members of ERGA), and technology companies like Google. Many of these are involved in or have stakes in the policy discussions covered here. None of these funders have been consulted on the report. Furthermore, the Reuters Institute is a partner in the BBC-orchestrated Trusted News Initiative, mentioned in the report, and he served on the European Commission's High Level Group on online disinformation, also mentioned in the report.
More information about the Reuters Institute, our funders, and our governance structure on our website and in our annual report.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Gorwa's doctoral studies are funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), with additional support from the Canadian Centennial Scholarship Fund. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Madeleine de Cock Buning does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If policymakers care about a vibrant news media, they need to ensure the freedom, funding, and future of independent professional journalism.Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, Director of Research, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of OxfordMadeleine de Cock Buning, Professor of Digital Politics, Economy and Societies at the School of Transnational Governance, European University InstituteRobert Gorwa, Doctoral Researcher, Politics and International Relations, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1251622019-10-11T16:01:37Z2019-10-11T16:01:37ZCome and join The Conversation for our Future of Journalism event at the University of Dundee on October 19<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296696/original/file-20191011-96217-tbs35q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Old school: His Girl Friday</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Columbia Pictures</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>These are tough times for journalism – particularly print, widely regarded to be dying on its feet. Investment in titles is practically zero, budgets are being slashed and, for many proprietors, clickbait is king.</p>
<p>So where does that leave quality journalism, the kind that seeks to explain complex and fast-changing events like Brexit, and hold politicians, public figures and big business to account? In peril it might seem. But good journalism is needed now more than ever in these unprecedented times of political crisis, as a vital part of our democracy.</p>
<p>Technology has completely transformed how we consume our news, leaving print as the dinosaur facing extinction. As the immediacy of social media and 24-hour online news has shifted the whole landscape and print readers have declined, newspapers have had to adapt and embrace the digital revolution to augment their print offering.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296688/original/file-20191011-96235-kp4rq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296688/original/file-20191011-96235-kp4rq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296688/original/file-20191011-96235-kp4rq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296688/original/file-20191011-96235-kp4rq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296688/original/file-20191011-96235-kp4rq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296688/original/file-20191011-96235-kp4rq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296688/original/file-20191011-96235-kp4rq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>Polemical comment and opinion pieces proliferate and subjects traditionally considered off limits to serious broadsheets – celebrity, gossip, humour and fashion – have flourished beyond the bounds of the magazine section. Fighting to be heard amid the digital clamour, newspapers have had to bend to the cultural influence of social media and reshape their style and content.</p>
<p>The Conversation entered this changing media landscape in 2011 and has quickly found its place as a bulwark against misinformation in a “post-truth” era. A global online platform where expertise is paramount, it uses academic experts – working with journalists – to analyse and explain complex issues, share their research and innovation, and comment on the big stories and events shaping our world.</p>
<p>A not-for-profit educational entity that invites universities to join as fee-paying members, The Conversation has no adverts, is free to access and our content can be republished free of charge anywhere. For an industry supposedly in decline, it stands as a tremendous success story, claiming 40m readers a month worldwide.</p>
<p>But many digital news platforms have failed to find a way to successfully monetise their business, watching advertising revenues drain away to the likes of Google and other big social media giants. This makes it increasingly hard to make journalism pay. And good journalism costs.</p>
<p>Many editors have found themselves in a quandary, chasing audiences who expect to get their news for free. Some are under enormous pressure to ensure they get clicks. So how is that affecting the quality of their journalistic output? And what does the future of journalism look like under such pressures?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296697/original/file-20191011-96252-wlt6mg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296697/original/file-20191011-96252-wlt6mg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296697/original/file-20191011-96252-wlt6mg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296697/original/file-20191011-96252-wlt6mg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296697/original/file-20191011-96252-wlt6mg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296697/original/file-20191011-96252-wlt6mg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296697/original/file-20191011-96252-wlt6mg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>On Saturday 19 October, The Conversation is delighted to be taking part in the University of Dundee’s second Festival of the Future, a celebration of science, arts and culture, with more than 50 events over five days in venues around the city.</p>
<p>We’re holding our own mini JournoFest within the festival, exploring what the future holds for the industry, first with a keynote speech by Polly Curtis, former UK editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post, now visiting fellow at the The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University, and an editor and writer at “slow news” outfit Tortoise. Curtis’s talk will examine the burgeoning information divide between those who pay for news and those who rely on free services, and how this is affecting society. </p>
<p>Afterwards we will be holding a panel discussion examining whether editors try too hard to give audiences what they want. The debate will take place in front of a public audience of around 250 people with five distinguished panellists giving their take.</p>
<p>They are: writer and broadcaster Paul Mason; Richard Neville, head of newspapers at DC Thomson; journalist and broadcaster Pennie Taylor; David Clegg, former political editor of the Daily Record and newly installed editor of Dundee’s daily paper, The Courier; and Anna Notaro, senior lecturer in media theory, University of Dundee. The Conversation’s politics editor, Laura Hood, will be chairing the event.</p>
<p>The panel discussion will focus on the interesting paradox in today’s journalism: on the one hand, we are often told that news coverage has dumbed down in recent years, becoming less serious and more celebrity-oriented, with shorter articles, interviews and packages – arguably made worse by the rise of social media and the endless need to satisfy short attention spans and attract clicks. </p>
<p>On the other, there has never been a greater selection of serious long-form media, from The Financial Times to The Ferret, an online investigative outfit based in Scotland – and of course, The Conversation. But a third of Britons say they are avoiding the news because they are turned off by all the Brexit coverage, while Channel 4 News and the Today Programme are among those blaming it for falling audience numbers.</p>
<p>So what really is the direction of travel? Are we well served with serious news coverage and dumbing down at the same time as editors seek to give audiences what they want? Are we seeing a widening gap between a freakishly well informed minority and a mass rump that is being left behind? How do we ensure that journalism in the UK remains in robust health and up to the job of holding those in power to account?</p>
<p>Come along and find out.</p>
<p><em>Both events will take place on Saturday 19 October at the University of Dundee’s Bonar Hall (Park Place, Dundee, DD1 4HW), with Polly Curtis’s keynote speech at 2.15pm and the panel debate at 4pm. Tickets for both events cost £5 (£3), and you can purchase them <a href="https://www.dundee.ac.uk/festival-future/programme/">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125162/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Come along to our very own mini journofest, part of the Festival of the Future 2019.Jane Wright, Commissioning Editor, Arts & Culture, The Conversation UKLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/915812018-02-09T13:57:02Z2018-02-09T13:57:02ZWhy Theresa May’s plan to save local journalism could end up benefiting media moguls<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205698/original/file-20180209-51697-473zlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2091954">Derek Harper</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There are two ways of looking at the new <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/feb/06/decline-of-local-journalism-threatens-democracy-says-may?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Media+briefing+2016&utm_term=263345&subid=1249353&CMP=ema_546">Press Review</a> announced by Theresa May, the UK prime minister: a genuine attempt to inject some badly needed funds into the failing business model of journalism, or another backhander to the mainstream corporate press to keep them sweet. Depressingly, history suggests the latter.</p>
<p>The prime minister was effusive about the importance of journalism as a “huge force for good” – and anyone who has seen Spielberg’s The Post could scarcely disagree. That <a href="https://theconversation.com/steven-spielbergs-the-post-is-a-timely-reminder-of-the-constitutional-importance-of-a-free-press-90475">film encapsulated</a> everything noble about great reporting and the vital importance of a free and independent press to a healthy democracy.</p>
<p>May chose to highlight the crisis in local journalism – where the journalism may be less dramatic than that portrayed by Tom Hanks et al, but is just as vital: the leaders of local institutions such as hospitals, police forces, local courts or local councils can be equally susceptible to corruption or incompetence and also require the kind of scrutiny which keeps them accountable to local people. At a more mundane level, communities need reliable information about transport, planning, policing, education and local businesses simply to participate as informed citizens in their local area.</p>
<p>May is right that the problem of sustaining local media is particularly acute. Classified advertising – the mainstay of local journalism – has <a href="http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/how-the-rise-of-online-ads-has-prompted-a-70-per-cent-cut-in-journalist-numbers-at-big-uk-regional-dailies/">all but disappeared</a> from print newspapers, while the big tech companies – particularly Facebook and Google – are <a href="https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/google-facebook-dominate-half-digital-media-market/1444793">hoovering up</a> local as well as national advertising revenues. The major regional publishing groups – Trinity Mirror, Johnston Press, Newsquest and Tindle, which between them own nearly 75% of regional titles – are obliged to choose between protecting their profit margins, consolidating their papers, or closing them completely. </p>
<p>As a comprehensive <a href="https://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/policy-institute/CMCP/local-news.pdf">study</a> by Kings College London demonstrated in 2016, consolidation usually produces powerful monopolies in which “local” reporting is hollowed out and outsourced to distant regional hubs.</p>
<h2>Local watchdogs</h2>
<p>What to do? Many countries are examining policy interventions to address the problem: from direct public subsidies, to levies on aggregators and other tech giants for redistribution to new or established journalistic enterprises. In 2012, the House of Lords Communications Committee <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201012/ldselect/ldcomuni/256/25602.htm">recommended</a> reform of charity law to allow greater discretion for recognising some journalism as a charitable activity, in the same way as education. This is a common route for non-profit journalism enterprises in the US to raise money – something that has so far been largely ignored in the UK.</p>
<p>Then there is the BBC’s new <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/corporate2/insidethebbc/howwework/partnerships/localnews">Local Democracy Reporter</a> scheme, under which the BBC has agreed to fund 150 local reporters as part of a new partnership with publishers, costing licence payers around £8m A year. While in principle an apparently productive use of public money to alleviate the democratic deficit, this scheme is a good illustration of why we should look very carefully at May’s motives.</p>
<p>In practice, the vast majority of those reporter contracts have been swallowed up by those very publishers that have been consolidating operations and closing papers while protecting their profit base – as <a href="http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/most-of-150-new-bbc-funded-local-democracy-reporters-go-to-trinity-mirror-newsquest-and-johnston-press/">noted by industry bible the Press Gazette</a>, 130 of the 144 assigned reporters went to Trinity Mirror, Newsquest or Johnston Press.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205699/original/file-20180209-51706-u9jxcq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205699/original/file-20180209-51706-u9jxcq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205699/original/file-20180209-51706-u9jxcq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205699/original/file-20180209-51706-u9jxcq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205699/original/file-20180209-51706-u9jxcq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205699/original/file-20180209-51706-u9jxcq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205699/original/file-20180209-51706-u9jxcq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Keeping people in touch with their communities.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mount Pleasant Granary</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>The editor of one small publisher, the Salford Star, <a href="https://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/2017/news/hyperlocals-say-bbc-democracy-reporter-scheme-a-total-sham/">reacted</a> by calling the scheme “a total sham” which benefited only those news groups that “have been sacking journalists for years in the relentless pursuit of more profit”.</p>
<p>This illustrates the risk of taking May’s review at face value. There are literally hundreds of small, hyperlocal publishers operating around the UK with the potential to make a fundamental contribution to redressing the local democratic deficit. My own research, with Cardiff and Birmingham City universities, has <a href="https://hyperlocalsurvey.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/hyperlocal-community-news-in-the-uk-2014.pdf">demonstrated</a> that many of these small operations have successfully initiated local campaigns or investigations entirely in keeping with the kind of watchdog journalism which is in retreat. </p>
<p>These are precisely the kinds of small, entrepreneurial, dynamic enterprises – often making creative use of social and online media as well as traditional hard copy distribution – that would benefit hugely from a small injection of cash.</p>
<h2>‘Big beasts’ dominate</h2>
<p>Unfortunately, the big beasts of the <a href="http://www.newsmediauk.org/">News Media Association</a> – the alliance of major publishers which includes Murdoch’s News UK, the Mail and Mirror groups as well as the biggest regional groups – have consistently lobbied against any measures that might divert resources away from their own bank accounts. As a succession of senior ministers and former prime ministers testified to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/leveson-inquiry-7469">Leveson Inquiry</a>, Britain’s corporate press still wields frightening power over UK governments that is out of all proportion to their steadily dwindling circulations.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"959519611195666434"}"></div></p>
<p>There must therefore be a very large question mark over where May’s review will be allowed to go, and what it might recommend. Will it be a serious examination of creative policy solutions to a fundamental problem which threatens an informed and vibrant democracy? Or will it be little more than a sop to those powerful press barons who – at least in the eyes of her own party – have helped to sustain the Conservative party in power?</p>
<p>Given the ferocious propaganda battle that those same press barons have fought in the post-Leveson era against any measures that might make them more accountable – and given that every one of her five prime ministerial predecessors at some point surrendered to their concerted and self-interested lobbying – we should not be surprised if the main beneficiaries of this review will yet again be the likes of Rupert Murdoch and the other big beast of Fleet Street.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91581/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Barnett has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).</span></em></p>Previous government aid packages for local papers have instead helped Fleet Street’s ‘big beasts’.Steven Barnett, Professor of Communications, University of WestminsterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/894292018-01-17T14:45:02Z2018-01-17T14:45:02ZBBC still dominates when it comes to news online – why it matters<p>The BBC is regularly subject to accusations of bias from <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/10690226/BBC-has-been-accused-of-bias-throughout-history.html">both sides of the political spectrum</a>. For <a href="https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/BBC%20Bias%20Chp%203.pdf">those on the right</a>, it provides a liberal metropolitan perspective which one might associate with left-wing politics. For some on the left, the BBC represents a conservative (with a small “c”) worldview: deferential to the monarchy, supportive of the party of government, and firmly part of the establishment. </p>
<p>To understand the changing ways British users get their news, we’ve been looking at data from the <a href="http://natcen.ac.uk/our-research/research/british-social-attitudes/">British Social Attitudes survey</a> – the country’s longest running and most authoritative survey of social and political attitudes, conducted annually by the National Centre for Social Research since 1983. As you might expect, there has been a growing trend for people to get their news online: while one in five did so every day in 2010, two in five did by 2016. But despite the rise of online-only upstarts like Buzzfeed and HuffPost, our <a href="https://www.natcen.ac.uk/media/1530344/media-briefing-v-27-checked-formatted.pdf">survey results</a> reveal that the BBC website is still dominant. Half of people we surveyed said it was the news website they visited most often. </p>
<p>The BBC has retained this dominance since our records began in 2010. Only three other websites have a significant share of the online audience: Mail Online, Sky, and The Guardian – all of which have offline counterparts.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199990/original/file-20171219-4954-1m7vlis.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199990/original/file-20171219-4954-1m7vlis.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199990/original/file-20171219-4954-1m7vlis.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199990/original/file-20171219-4954-1m7vlis.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199990/original/file-20171219-4954-1m7vlis.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199990/original/file-20171219-4954-1m7vlis.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199990/original/file-20171219-4954-1m7vlis.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199990/original/file-20171219-4954-1m7vlis.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Where do we get our news online?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">NatCen</span></span>
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<p>This chimes with other <a href="http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/insidethebbc/howwework/reports/pdf/bbc_report_trust_and_impartiality_nov_2017.pdf">recent research</a> that shows the BBC is way ahead of other news sources when it comes to levels of public trust and perceptions of accuracy and impartiality.</p>
<p>There is certainly no suggestion that people are consuming less news. News media will continue to change, and it is likely that more people will start to get news direct from social media feeds rather than visiting other websites. In North America, for example, Facebook is the second most popular source of news, after <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/07/americans-online-news-use-vs-tv-news-use/">television news</a>. There are, however, justifiable worries that as the landscape continues to fragment, it will <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/the-polarisation-of-the-media-fuels-the-rancid-state-of-politics-in-britain-and-america-a7603426.html">lead to a narrowing of perspectives</a>.</p>
<p>While there is a counter-argument that online news content could create a more vibrant and diverse democracy, the BBC can be seen as a guardian of competing perspectives. Indeed, this has led <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/mar/19/facebook-needs-news-why-shouldnt-it-pay-for-it-endowment">some to argue</a> that the US needs an equivalent to the BBC to improve their democracy. So, in future, we should probably worry less about political attacks on the BBC and be more vigilant for signs these attacks are quieting down. If that happens, it might signal a slowdown in the high-quality, independent journalism that a thriving democracy needs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89429/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This piece of research was not funded by an external body. Kirby Swales works for the National Centre for Social Research, which is a charity and receives contract and grant funding from government, research councils and other research funders. </span></em></p>Even as the news market transforms, BBC News is still the dominant force. Why?Kirby Swales, Director of Survey Research Centre, National Centre for Social ResearchLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/599872016-06-29T19:47:13Z2016-06-29T19:47:13ZVideo didn’t kill the radio star – she’s hosting a podcast<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127444/original/image-20160621-8861-1qg30pe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Are we in the midst of a podcasting revolution?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/9778048@N06/5768245798/">Mikael Nyberg</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Podcasters P.J. Vogt, host of <a href="https://gimletmedia.com/show/reply-all/">Reply All</a>, and Starlee Kine, host of <a href="https://gimletmedia.com/show/mystery-show/">Mystery Show</a>, addressed sold-out sessions at the Sydney Writers’ Festival last month, riding the wave of popularity engendered by <a href="https://serialpodcast.org">Serial</a>, the 2014 US true crime podcast series whose 100 million downloads galvanised the audio storytelling world. </p>
<p>Over 12 weeks, using a blend of personal narratives and investigative journalism delivered in ultra-casual conversational style, host Sarah Koenig examined the case against Adnan Syed, a Baltimore high school student who had been convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee, in 1999. </p>
<p>In risky but inspired innovation, the series launched without a conclusive ending. It invited listeners to veer with Koenig through the unfolding evidence – a departure <a href="http://www.cjr.org/the_kicker/serial_sarah_koenig_journalism.php">hailed</a> as making journalism more transparent, in a genre not without <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/01/25/dead-certainty">ethical conundrums</a>. The show fomented raucous chatrooms online and Koenig featured on the cover of Time magazine. </p>
<p>“Hosting” is at the heart of the vaunted <a href="http://www.globaleditorsnetwork.org/press-room/news/2016/02/podcasting-trends-for-2016/">podcasting revolution</a> that has seen comedy, “chumcasts” (friends riffing on a theme) and deeply <a href="http://loveandradio.org/2013/02/jack-and-ellen/">personal</a> storytelling vie with established radio documentary, feature and interview formats for audience share. In radio institutions such as the ABC or BBC, programs have “presenters” and the organisation adds further brand identity. In the <a href="https://medium.com/@slowerdawn/how-podcasts-have-changed-in-ten-years-by-the-numbers-720a6e984e4e#.vysqmaul9">ever-expanding podsphere</a> (over 350,000 podcasts are listed on iTunes), “hosts” speak directly into our ear. </p>
<p>This seductive intimacy affects both the <a href="http://ro.uow.edu.au/lhapapers/2358/">form and content</a> of the audio storytelling genre. It appeals to listeners from hitherto untapped demographics as well as to rusted-on audiophiles – a development being watched by both <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/27/business/media/ads-for-podcasts-test-the-line-between-story-and-sponsor.html?_r=0">advertisers</a> and activists. </p>
<p>In the predominantly English-speaking <a href="https://www.academia.edu/14504222/The_Second_Age_of_Podcasting_reframing_Podcasting_as_a_New_Digital_Mass_Medium">12-year-old podsphere</a>, producers and consumers of podcasts used to be mainly young, white, educated, affluent males. But, in the last two years, female listenership has <a href="http://www.edisonresearch.com/the-podcast-consumer-2016/">doubled</a>. Female hosts are storming the studio (or bedroom, where many an indie podcast originates, or garage, where US comedian Marc Maron famously conducted a deeply revealing <a href="http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episodes/episode_613_-_president_barack_obama">interview</a> with Barack Obama last year). </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126220/original/image-20160612-29205-eonlia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126220/original/image-20160612-29205-eonlia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126220/original/image-20160612-29205-eonlia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126220/original/image-20160612-29205-eonlia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126220/original/image-20160612-29205-eonlia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126220/original/image-20160612-29205-eonlia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126220/original/image-20160612-29205-eonlia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Barack Obama discussed racism, gun control, his family and his fearlessness in a conversation podcast from comedian Marc Maron’s garage in LA.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">WTF Podcast with Marc Maron</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“Hosts are really forming relationships in new ways with their listeners,” says Julie Shapiro, CEO of <a href="https://www.radiotopia.fm/">Radiotopia</a>, “a curated network of extraordinary, story-driven shows” founded in 2014. It now has over ten million downloads a month of its 14 shows. </p>
<p>Radiotopia’s recent “Podquest” competition attracted 1,537 entrants from 53 countries. The <a href="https://www.radiotopia.fm/podquest/">finalists</a> propose shows that feature marginalised voices and quirky perspectives, delivered as engaging crafted narrative.</p>
<p>Radiotopia and <a href="https://gimletmedia.com/">Gimlet</a>, the independent US network that hosts Kine and Vogt, have been created by former public radio broadcasters. They still proclaim the editorial values and lofty mission <a href="http://current.org/2012/05/national-public-radio-purposes/">articulated</a> when National Public Radio (NPR) was founded in 1971. </p>
<p>The podsphere is unregulated – open slather for hate speech and religious rants, with the medium already exploited by groups like ISIS. But minorities are also <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19376529.2015.1083373?journalCode=hjrs20">colonising</a> the space, with growing audiences for shows on <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-24/wollongong-locals-create-transgender-podcast/7196704">transgender</a> issues, gender, sexuality and race. </p>
<p>In Australia, both public broadcasters are developing podcast-first formats. SBS has <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/programs/true-stories">True Stories</a>, unusual tales of multicultural experiences, and the ABC offers <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radio/firstrun/">First Run</a>, which ranges from comedy to entertaining history. </p>
<p>But other organisations, from <a href="http://fbiradio.com/podcast/all-the-best/">community radio</a> to independents, are now able to compete for listeners. Longtime ABC star Andrew Denton <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/andrew-denton-is-back-with-better-off-dead-a-podcast-about-the-right-to-die-20160218-gmxr1j.html">partnered</a> The Wheeler cultural centre in Melbourne to launch his excellent podcast series on euthanasia, <a href="http://www.wheelercentre.com/broadcasts/podcasts/better-off-dead">Better Off Dead</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126221/original/image-20160612-29229-cvkysu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126221/original/image-20160612-29229-cvkysu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126221/original/image-20160612-29229-cvkysu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126221/original/image-20160612-29229-cvkysu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126221/original/image-20160612-29229-cvkysu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126221/original/image-20160612-29229-cvkysu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126221/original/image-20160612-29229-cvkysu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Media personality Andrew Denton chose the podcast medium for his euthanasia series, Better Off Dead.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Edwina Pickles</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other veteran radio journalists are going solo. In 2015, US producer John Biewen, whose work has featured on prestigious outlets including This American Life, NPR and the BBC, launched his own show, <a href="http://podcast.cdsporch.org">Scene On Radio</a>. He told me:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Liberation from broadcast gatekeepers and formats outweighed the advantages they bring … the only downside … is the loss of audience numbers. [But] the freedom to produce work in the tone and at the length that I choose is priceless.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Podcasts can be as long as a piece of string</h2>
<p>Thrillingly, podcasts can be as long as a piece of string. Audio producers can focus on a natural narrative shape rather than artificially moulding a story to a pre-ordained duration. This enhanced Serial’s appeal and opens new structural possibilities for the form. </p>
<p>At one end, we may see podcasting develop further as a form of literary journalism: a poetic or narrative audio genre long established in Europe and articulated by the <a href="http://www.britannica.com/topic/New-Journalism">New Journalism</a> of the 1960s and ‘70s. It incorporates qualities such as immersive reportage, scenes, evocative writing and a subjective point of view.</p>
<p>At the other end of the spectrum, cheaply produced podcast panel-fests are proliferating. The topics range from the <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/two-grumpy-hacks-australian/id1112778096?mt=2">elections</a> in Australia and the US to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/series/token-podcast">race</a> and popular culture. Some of these sound clunky and turgid – print journalists operating in a medium they don’t yet get. Others, such as Buzzfeed’s <a href="https://soundcloud.com/anotherroundwithhebenandtracy/episode-58-the-job-of">Another Round</a>, have the chemistry and the tone spot on, snaring big names such as Hillary Clinton along the way. </p>
<p>This rapidly evolving podcast ecology is coming under increasing <a href="http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-issue,id=3091/">academic scrutiny</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126219/original/image-20160612-29216-2b8dm7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126219/original/image-20160612-29216-2b8dm7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126219/original/image-20160612-29216-2b8dm7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126219/original/image-20160612-29216-2b8dm7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126219/original/image-20160612-29216-2b8dm7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126219/original/image-20160612-29216-2b8dm7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126219/original/image-20160612-29216-2b8dm7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sarah Koenig, host of Serial podcast.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.mirror.co.uk</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Meanwhile, the race continues to find the next Serial. The <a href="https://serialpodcast.org/2015/12/season-two-welcome">second season of Serial</a>, about the troubled Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, a US soldier held captive by the Taliban for almost five years, didn’t quite manage it. Canada’s CBC got close with <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/radio/sks">Somebody Knows Something</a>. </p>
<p>The best candidate yet is <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/bowraville">The Bowraville Murders</a>, unexpectedly well produced by The Australian newspaper, in which rookie podcaster Dan Box investigates the unsolved murders of three Aboriginal children from the same small town 25 years ago, bringing raw pain and kneejerk racism directly to listeners.</p>
<p>Having received scant attention for his other crime reportage, Box was astonished by the reaction to the podcast: it has probably been instrumental in <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/may/23/australias-serial-dan-box-on-the-making-of-true-podcast-bowraville">launching a fresh trial</a>. Its power lies in fundamental aspects of the audio medium: its capacity to convey emotion and evoke empathy, imagination and intimacy. When those strengths are harnessed, podcasting becomes a formidable force for social engagement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59987/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Siobhan McHugh produces podcastable radio documentaries on a freelance basis for ABC Radio National. She is currently researching a radio documentary on relational aspects of the production of Aboriginal art, funded by the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>The mobile-first delivery of podcasts has created a powerful relationship between listeners and host that bypasses traditional broadcast gatekeepers. Could this format trigger new narrative genres and promote social engagement?Siobhan McHugh, Senior Lecturer, Journalism, University of WollongongLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/589532016-05-05T11:39:45Z2016-05-05T11:39:45ZNew Day barely dawned: here’s why UK’s latest paper closed after just two months<p>So, barely two months – and 50 editions – since Trinity Mirror launched its bright new newspaper venture, The New Day, the company <a href="http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/05/trinity-mirrors-new-day-to-close-on-friday">has announced its closure</a>. Confirming widespread industry speculation – and the worst fears of the new paper’s staff – the company issued a <a href="http://www.ft.com/fastft/2016/05/05/trinity-mirror-confirms-plans-to-close-new-day-after-9-weeks/">trading statement</a> saying:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Although The New Day has received many supportive reviews and built a strong following on Facebook, the circulation for the title is below our expectations. As a result, we have decided to close the title on 6 May 2016. While disappointing, the launch and subsequent closure have provided new insights into enhancing our newspapers and a number of these opportunities will be considered over time.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What an abrupt and sadly inevitable end to a project launched with <a href="https://theconversation.com/heres-wishing-trinity-mirror-good-luck-with-its-new-paper-itll-need-it-55341">great optimism</a> and, whatever your views on the paper itself, a freshness of approach intended to challenge the cynicism and negativity of the conventional press. If you didn’t like newspapers – then this was the paper for you.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"727954983723933697"}"></div></p>
<p>The first (free) edition appeared on February 29 and <a href="https://theconversation.com/will-readers-rise-to-greet-the-new-day-heres-what-i-thought-of-britains-new-paper-55529">as I wrote</a> on this site it was vibrant, folksy, overwhelmingly upbeat and seemingly completely focused on a female audience. Its sports coverage was scant, there were no TV listings and editorially there was an emphasis on lifestyle and issues. </p>
<p>There was also the rather strange decision taken by the publishers of this “<a href="http://www.thedrum.com/news/2016/02/22/trinity-mirror-s-new-day-newspaper-vies-facebook-news-feed-style-won-t-get-sit">newspaper of the digital age</a>” not to have a website or digital edition. And while this was <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.mediaspectrum.newdayandroidreplica">partially rectified</a> in late April, it did seem that this may have been a major gamble which could easily have deprived The New Day of a potential audience. </p>
<p>So here we are just ten weeks later. The hoped-for daily sales of 200,000 never materialised and the latest sales figures <a href="http://www.thedrum.com/news/2016/03/29/new-day-selling-just-40000-copies-day-trinity-mirror-stands-its-launch-despite-slow">are understood</a> to have dropped below 40,000.</p>
<h2>Dark days for print</h2>
<p>The closure is of course a major blow for all the journalists involved. The New Day editor, Alison Phillips, wrote on the paper’s <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thenewdayuk/posts/1343358809013754">Facebook</a> page of the “extraordinary” engagement with readers and the fact that there were clearly many people who loved the idea of a different kind of newspaper. Alas, as is also evidently the case, there were simply not that many of them willing to part with 25p for the first two weeks of sale and 50p thereafter.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"728124608541380609"}"></div></p>
<p>And there, as if we didn’t know it, is the rub. The New Day did not become financially viable quickly enough. Some experts, such as former FT media editor <a href="https://twitter.com/RaymondSnoddy/status/728110617903570945">Raymond Snoddy</a> suggest that the price hike from 25p to 50p was implemented far too early – that circulation and brand loyalty should have been built before that decision was taken. In The Guardian, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/may/05/why-the-new-day-didnt-work-and-had-no-hope-of-working?CMP=share_btn_tw">Roy Greenslade </a> wrote of a venture doomed to fail because the newspaper was launched on the cheap. It was bold in concept, but timid in execution. Did no one at Trinity Mirror, he asked, stop to wonder at the folly of trying to convince a target audience composed of people who dislike newspapers to buy a newspaper?</p>
<p>It must be remembered, as is the case for all newspaper publishers, that these are dark days for Trinity Mirror. As the closure of The New Day was announced, so too was the fact that print advertising revenues were <a href="http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/trinity-confirms-closure-new-day-it-reveals-overall-print-advertising-down-19-cent-year-year">down 19%</a> with circulation revenue down 4.5% in the first four months of this year. The <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4538e6b8-1234-11e6-839f-2922947098f0.html?ftcamp=crm/email//nbe/OpeningQuote/product#axzz47llF0I4T">Financial Times</a> reported an 18% drop in Trinity Mirror’s pre-tax profit for 2015 to £67m and a 7% decline in revenues to £593m. According to the FT, the company’s share price has fallen about 80% over the past decade.</p>
<p>It may be the case that it is this precarious situation that led Trinity Mirror to seriously underfund The New Day. This most ambitious of projects, in the most volatile of times, simply did not have the workforce or financial backing to make a long term bid for success. A very brief <a href="http://www.brandrepublic.com/article/trinity-mirror-launches-5m-ad-campaign-new-day/1385252?bulletin=brandrepublicnewsbulletin&amp;utm_medium=EMAIL&amp;utm_campaign=eNews%20Bulletin&amp;utm_source=20160226&amp;utm_content=www_brandrepublic_com_art_3">£5m advertising campaign</a> in the days before its launch proved wholly inadequate and the <a href="http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/trinity-mirror-confirms-launch-upbeat-optimistic-politically-neutral-national-newspaper-new-day">25 core staff</a> involved in the day to day newsgathering and editing were <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/new-day-newspaper-closure-trinity-mirror_uk_572a4ff4e4b0e6da49a5af77">reportedly</a> either on secondment from the Mirror and Sunday Mirror or on short-term contracts.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"728117077337214976"}"></div></p>
<h2>Spare a thought for staff</h2>
<p>Staff morale could hardly have been improved by initial industry reaction to the paper. Analysts thought the venture <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/20/new-day-terrible-start-simon-fox-trinity-mirror">ill-conceived</a> and veteran writers expressed scorn and ridicule. In the Spectator, <a href="http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/03/reading-the-mirrors-new-newspaper-makes-me-want-to-throw-myself-on-a-bonfire/">Alexander Chancellor</a> wrote that reading The New Day made him feel like throwing himself “on the bonfire”, reasoning that if it succeeded then it would mark the irreversible decline of newspapers.</p>
<p>So let’s spare a final thought for those journalists seeking to create and sustain something genuinely different in a familiar and troubled environment. Working with limited funds, seemingly hasty management and a general public evidently ever more unwilling to pay for newspapers, the project appeared from the first to be doomed to fail. It was therefore heartening to read the words of Alison Phillips this morning, whose optimism reflected the newspaper she so briefly edited:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I just hope all of those of us who’ve been involved in this escapade – readers, staff, advertisers, paperboys, papergirls … never ever stop trying new things. Because that’s when we start dying.<br>
To take Samuel Beckett: “Ever tried. Ever Failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”<br>
Thanks for everything…</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58953/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
It was a newspaper for people who don’t like newspapers. And not enough people liked it.John Jewell, Director of Undergraduate Studies, School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/555852016-03-03T11:31:42Z2016-03-03T11:31:42ZThe future of journalism is being built today – what you need to know<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113573/original/image-20160302-25866-1xpx63w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Take a hint.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://xkcd.com/1601/">xkcd</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Journalism is in an existential crisis: revenue to news organisations has fallen off a cliff over the past two decades and no clear business model is emerging to sustain news in the digital era.</p>
<p>No model is proving to be the saviour of journalism but experiments to figure out how to make money as news consumption moves online is ongoing. In our series Business Models for the News Media, we invited leading academics to comment on the efficacy and potential impact of some of those new models.</p>
<p>By looking closer at how news organisations are trying to stay afloat and relevant, this series also opens a window into the hopes and fears of an entire profession.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/are-paywalls-saving-journalism-53585">Paywalls are having some success</a></strong></p>
<p>The Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post have all implemented some form of paywall, requiring readers to pay to access content. But others, like The Guardian and the Daily Mail’s MailOnline have not. It seems as though it works for some but not for others. Why?</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/will-crowdfunding-save-journalism-54070">Crowdfunding raised hopes for a while</a></strong></p>
<p>The likes of Kickstarter and De Correspondent in the Netherlands raise the prospect of crowdfunding as a new funding model for journalism. Many see it as having the potential to make journalism viable for the future. But we may be kidding ourselves (to some extent, at least).</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/are-micropayments-a-viable-way-to-support-the-news-business-53586">Micropayments have a sustainability issue</a></strong></p>
<p>Can you spare a dime to support journalism? The micropayment model is betting that you can. And perhaps it’s right in certain cases. What if you can receive something unique, such as personalised news, for 10p?</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/tech-companies-are-eating-journalists-lunch-shouldnt-they-at-least-pay-for-it-53086">A tech levy can save journalism</a></strong></p>
<p>The premise is simple enough: tech companies such as Facebook, Apple and Twitter are eating journalists’ lunch, so shouldn’t they at least pay for it? A levy on companies that benefit from journalism would help save the news business.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/will-people-club-together-to-ensure-the-survival-of-quality-journalism-54754">Membership schemes target superfans</a></strong></p>
<p>Would you join a “news club”? The Guardian is betting at least some of its future on launching a membership scheme which offers member benefits (talks, concerts among other things) to people who identify enough with its brand to join. Plus you get the warm fuzzy feeling of supporting something worthwhile.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55585/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Journalism is in an existential crisis. Whether it can survive will depend on experiments news organisations are carrying out now.Jonathan Este, Senior International Affairs Editor, Associate EditorKhalil A. Cassimally, Head of Audience Insights, The Conversation InternationalLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/555292016-02-29T16:25:30Z2016-02-29T16:25:30ZWill readers rise to greet The New Day? Here’s what I thought of Britain’s new paper<p>The New Day, Trinity Mirror’s attempt to breathe life into the generally moribund world of UK national daily newspapers, has been launched after a <a href="http://www.brandrepublic.com/article/trinity-mirror-launches-5m-ad-campaign-new-day/1385252?bulletin=brandrepublicnewsbulletin&utm_medium=EMAIL&utm_campaign=eNews%20Bulletin&utm_source=20160226&utm_content=www_brandrepublic_com_art_3%20">£5m advertising campaign</a> and much industry speculation about who its market is and whether it can survive when all other newspapers are finding it so tough.</p>
<p>But optimism is the name of the game here – and (professing to already know all about the paper’s readhership) <a href="http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/there-nothing-greater-launching-national-newspaper-says-editor-new-day-0">Zoe Harris</a>, the group marketing director at Trinity Mirror Group and the publishing director for The New Day, said last week:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The launch campaign captures the spirit of how our reader feels – upbeat and positive, and relishing life.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And that broadly sums up today’s – free – first edition. Its front page is certainly distinctive – it should more realistically be called a cover, leading as it does with an emotive colour photograph and issue piece on child carers. The turquoise, black and white title font is anchored neatly with the platitudinous, inclusive buzz phrase: “Life’s short: let’s live it well”. </p>
<p>Indeed, the message is very much that this <em>our</em> paper – on an otherwise content-free page eight we are told it’s “strangely empty” because the editors want readers to fill it with “thoughts about what they’ve written” and “stories and pictures that you’d love to share”.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"704065076131700737"}"></div></p>
<h2>New best friend</h2>
<p>There are two editorials in the space of three pages which remind us that New Day can’t be “just another newspaper”. It is, writes editor Alison Phillips, modern and upbeat for “modern, glass half-full kind of people”. I think this folksiness a little overdone – the paper clearly wants to be your new best friend, full of sage advice and warm-hearted intentions. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113272/original/image-20160229-4066-1rcsvzg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113272/original/image-20160229-4066-1rcsvzg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113272/original/image-20160229-4066-1rcsvzg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113272/original/image-20160229-4066-1rcsvzg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113272/original/image-20160229-4066-1rcsvzg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113272/original/image-20160229-4066-1rcsvzg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113272/original/image-20160229-4066-1rcsvzg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Just look at the weather map on the back page with its utterly futile info bites:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What shall I wear? Hats, gloves, scarves and maybe a muffler to face a cold, and in some places, frosty morning.</p>
<p>Take it with you: An umbrella or raincoat will be useful in the north-west.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Well, I never! Who knew?</p>
<h2>Not your average paper</h2>
<p>But let’s park the cynicism. This is indeed an unconventional newspaper. There is no sport at all on the back pages. There is some sort of round-up near the middle pages but the colour photographs occupy most of the space and there are no live reports nor is there any analysis. There is no TV guide, either. What news there is is digested and condensed. In fact, The New Day is more akin to a conventional women’s magazine than it is to a recognisable tabloid.</p>
<p>And maybe that’s the point – <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/new-day-trinity-mirrors-new-national-newspaper-to-go-on-sale-next-monday-a6888546.html">Simon Fox</a>, the chief executive of Trinity Mirror, told BBC Radio Four’s Today programme last week that the paper would place an emphasis on reporting for women – and I noticed that nearly all of the prominent writers were women, too; only five were male and they were all well known for their expertise outside journalism. Such as David Cameron.</p>
<p>The commitment from Alison Phillips is not to sensationalise the news or to terrify the readers. There is to be no political bias or traditional leader columns. With all this in mind, one of the chief difficulties of the staff of around 25 will be creating enough content each and every day to fill the 40-odd pages. Perhaps this will be done through user-generated material and the willingness of the editorial team to continue to showcase the political views of “ordinary” members of the public. </p>
<p>One of the truly impressive innovations notable in The New Day is a two-page spread on the EU which gives equal prominence (in image, too) to the writing of the Prime Minister and Emma Thurston, an art teacher from London. <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/media/2016/02/new-national-daily-newspaper-without-website-launching-today-can-it-work">The New Statesman</a> also reports that editorial meetings will be filmed and put online in an attempt to engage with readers about how they would like a story covered.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"704268498344800256"}"></div></p>
<p>As I said earlier, the emphasis on issues and lifestyle seems to me borrowed from the staple diet of a women’s magazine. As well as the lead article on child carers there is an item on albino babies and bullying in schools. These serious stories sit alongside the more whimsical “moment of my life” pieces, inevitable quiz pages and eternal (but topical) conundrums, such as why women are so scared of proposing. </p>
<h2>Leap of faith</h2>
<p>So The New Day delivers exactly what it promised. For readers embittered by the relentless sermonising and negativity of the Great British press, this is the paper is for you. And despite the fact that it has overplayed the “newness” aspect, I thought this morning’s edition contained enough variety and innovation to separate itself from its competitors.</p>
<p>The key question is, of course, can it survive in an environment where sales of newspapers continue to <a href="https:/theconversation.com/the-future-is-digital-lets-hope-the-online-only-independent-will-be-part-of-it-54786">spiral downwards?</a>. The New Day will be on sale for 25p for the next two weeks before selling for 50p after that. In the major cities of the UK it will have to compete with the free Metro and in London with the Metro and the (also free) Evening Standard. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"703894175767523328"}"></div></p>
<p>There is also the rather bold decision taken by the publishers of the “<a href="http://www.thedrum.com/news/2016/02/22/trinity-mirror-s-new-day-newspaper-vies-facebook-news-feed-style-won-t-get-sit">newspaper of the digital age</a>” not to actually have a digital edition. Maybe that’s one clever ploy and maybe advertisers will return to print now that iPhone and iPad owners <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/sep/20/ad-blocking-threat-publishers-apple-ios9">can download apps</a> that will block ads on web pages.</p>
<p>It seems to me that The New Day is rather like the BuzzFeed model of news, in style and concept, re-adapted for the pre-internet era. Whether or not the “time poor” target audience of 35- to 55-year-olds are prepared buy into it is something we will find out sooner rather than later.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55529/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
It’s the first standalone daily newspaper to launch in the UK for 30 years. So what’s it like?John Jewell, Director of Undergraduate Studies, School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/553412016-02-26T10:48:26Z2016-02-26T10:48:26ZHere’s wishing Trinity Mirror good luck with its new paper. It’ll need it<p>The launch by Trinity Mirror of New Day, the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35628729">first new paid-for newspaper in three decades</a> is, on the face of it, potentially one of the worst commercial decisions since Microsoft launched <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/16/zune_axed/">the Zune</a> (look it up).</p>
<p>Failure, the evidence suggests, is all-too likely an option.</p>
<p>For a start, newspapers are an analogue product in a digital age. Why hand over hard cash to buy news to hold in your hands when you can read it on a device and from any number of sources for free? Why listen to one voice when you can hear a whole choir for free?</p>
<p>And nearly all news is broken now on social media. Hands up who went to a newspaper site and stuck with it throughout the day when news of <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/david-bowie">David Bowie’s death</a> broke. No one, right? Everyone was on Twitter and Facebook where the news first emerged. In an era when even the web is starting to feel more like a reference library than a breaking news platform, what is newsprint bringing to the table?</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"688748974195388416"}"></div></p>
<p>It’s true that good quality analysis is rarer online – many independent bloggers could use a sharp sub-editor to curb their self-indulgence and word counts, let alone correct their legal faux pas and abysmal grammar – but commentary and analysis is where news magazines are at their best. The <a href="http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/current-affairs-magazine-abcs-2015-spectator-new-statesman-private-eye-and-economist-all-grow">rising circulations</a> of Private Eye, The Spectator and – astonishingly, given its content is available for free online – New Statesman prove that there is an appetite for in-depth coverage beyond the daily headlines which people are willing to pay for.</p>
<h2>Paper tiger</h2>
<p>Some hacks on other papers have welcomed the arrival of a new competitor on the basis that it might help revive interest in newspapers generally but this is delusional. There is no evidence that the launch of the abridged version of The Independent, the “i” paper expanded readers’ appetite for newsprint; all it did was steal away readers, enticed by a cheap cover price, and <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/the-i-newspaper-records-largest-circulation-rise-9128809.html">eat into other papers’ markets</a>.</p>
<p>As for the argument that the new 40-page paper with its “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/feb/22/its-the-new-day-first-look-at-trinity-mirrors-new-newspaper">ruthless edit</a>” of the day’s news will appeal to time-poor readers – well, we’re all time-poor. That’s why, on the train into work, the bus home or walking to the car park, we’re glued to our mobiles; we’re maximising the precious few minutes we have.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112761/original/image-20160224-18284-1hegz3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112761/original/image-20160224-18284-1hegz3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112761/original/image-20160224-18284-1hegz3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112761/original/image-20160224-18284-1hegz3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112761/original/image-20160224-18284-1hegz3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112761/original/image-20160224-18284-1hegz3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112761/original/image-20160224-18284-1hegz3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Time poor, but newspapers are even poorer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Matej Kastelic</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What else? The title, New Day, is hardly distinctive. Does it sound like a potentially strong brand? Or more like a failed breakfast TV programme?</p>
<p>Trinity Mirror has not disclosed how much it is costing to launch the new paper but however many millions it is, the money might have been better spent upgrading some of the turgid websites of its <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/oct/28/trinity-mirror-local-world-deal">recent acquisition</a>, <a href="http://www.localworld.co.uk/">Local World</a>.</p>
<p>And you wonder what Trinity Mirror shareholders make of the move and a time when the company is <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jun/26/trinity-mirror-plans-to-double-cuts">aiming to save £20m this financial year</a> and revenues from its existing print operation were down 8% at the company’s last trading update in December 2015.</p>
<p>From every aspect, this looks an unlikely commercial prospect if you study the cold hard economics.</p>
<h2>And yet… and yet…</h2>
<p>There are, in the bean-counting, cost-cutting, eye-on-the-bottom-line world of modern media economics, still a few factors which give one pause for thought.</p>
<p>One is that the new paper, at 50p (25p to start with) will be cheap – so will potentially appeal to the Lidl-obsessed middle classes as much as the cash-strapped student or minimum wage earner, alongside the busy commuter.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112764/original/image-20160224-15614-1mf4aei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112764/original/image-20160224-15614-1mf4aei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112764/original/image-20160224-15614-1mf4aei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112764/original/image-20160224-15614-1mf4aei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112764/original/image-20160224-15614-1mf4aei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112764/original/image-20160224-15614-1mf4aei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112764/original/image-20160224-15614-1mf4aei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Feelgood factor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sjale</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another is that there remains a significant swath of older people whose eschew Twitter and Snapchat, prefer the BBC to Vice and would still rather read their news on paper than on a phone. Especially if it’s cheap. Older people are poorly served by the news media in many ways, which is odd when you think about how well-heeled baby boomers are supposed to be. The New Day is targeting an age group of 35-55. If it thought a little older, it might find there’s gold in them there retirees.</p>
<p>Finally, newspapers – and their journalism – have never been just about the money. For the readers, as much as for those who work on them, they represent something other than just a collection of stories. They are edited, not “curated”; they have an identity of their own, something which their loyal readers value and relate to. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112767/original/image-20160224-18284-1d8lkn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112767/original/image-20160224-18284-1d8lkn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112767/original/image-20160224-18284-1d8lkn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112767/original/image-20160224-18284-1d8lkn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112767/original/image-20160224-18284-1d8lkn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112767/original/image-20160224-18284-1d8lkn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112767/original/image-20160224-18284-1d8lkn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There’s nothing like a special edition.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lenscap Photography / Shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That’s why, when the big stuff happens, their sales go up. I don’t know about you but when Bowie died, I didn’t go around capturing screen shots of websites to read and reread. I went out and bought every newspaper I could lay my hands on.</p>
<p>If that’s what New Day is aiming to build, then we can only wish it well. With our fingers crossed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55341/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julie Nightingale does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s the worst time possible to launch the first new paper in 30 years. Here’s hoping it succeeds.Julie Nightingale, Senior Lecturer in Journalism, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/535862016-02-24T15:26:22Z2016-02-24T15:26:22ZAre micropayments a viable way to support the news business?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112391/original/image-20160222-25855-d1852n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Janaka Dharmasena/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Journalism is in an existential crisis: revenue to news organisations has fallen off a cliff over the past two decades and no clear business model is emerging to sustain news in the digital era.</em></p>
<p><em>In the latest in our series on <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/media-business-models">business models for the news media</a>, journalist and academic Jane Singer looks at the use of micropayments.</em></p>
<p>Once upon a time, the gap between the relatively low supply of something in high demand – timely and trustworthy information – generated enormous profits for news publishers. But over the past 15 years or so, the digital, social and mobile revolutions have all but obliterated that gap.</p>
<p>In response, publishers have scrambled for new revenue streams, and much recent attention <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20395407">has turned to “micropayments”</a> – the payment of a very small amount to access a comparably small bit of content, such as a single story. </p>
<p>The traditional media world is one of <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2014/03/newspapers">bundled information</a>, with a lot of diverse content in one package that aims to provide something for everyone. The digital world, though, is an unbundled one. It enables each individual to select one item at a time from among the billions of things on offer. Are we willing to pay for this content? Sometimes yes – see iTunes. </p>
<p>But the question for news outlets is whether personalised news can follow the lead of personalised entertainment in generating interest and – in their fondest dreams – income. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111534/original/image-20160215-22560-n0znp3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111534/original/image-20160215-22560-n0znp3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111534/original/image-20160215-22560-n0znp3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111534/original/image-20160215-22560-n0znp3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111534/original/image-20160215-22560-n0znp3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111534/original/image-20160215-22560-n0znp3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111534/original/image-20160215-22560-n0znp3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111534/original/image-20160215-22560-n0znp3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Blendle is poised to take on the US market.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Blendle</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So far, news micropayment initiatives are – at best – a work in progress. The most buzz has been around a Dutch service called <a href="https://blendle.com/">Blendle</a>, which claims half a million registered users in Europe and is poised to tackle the US market. Most items on Blendle, which come from diverse outlets, cost between 10 cents and 90 cents and come with a money-back guarantee: you only pay for stories you actually read – and if you then don’t like them, you can ask for your pennies back. </p>
<p>The slick interface appeals to fans, as does the lack of advertising (and advertising’s attendant clickbait). But others have <a href="https://medium.com/@wfederman/micropayments-for-news-articles-are-a-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-idea-267930d95a3a#.xb3x05vzl">flatly predicted the concept is doomed to fail</a>. News consumers want to pay nothing, they say, and even a very small amount of money is not nothing. </p>
<h2>Who pays the piper?</h2>
<p>But perhaps the model here is not an “iTunes for journalism”, if by journalism we mean big-name branded content. Perhaps a crowdfunding site such as <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/">Kickstarter</a> offers a better template – the ability for users to stack their coins behind ideas they want to see developed rather than existing stories they want to read. </p>
<p>Experiments with crowdfunded journalism have proliferated. One flavour is essentially a low-cost membership model that allows its member – or donors – to steer journalists to topics of interest. MinnPost, a <a href="https://www.minnpost.com/about">non-profit site in Minnesota</a>, has made good use of this approach. For instance, a New Americans beat, which covers the state’s immigrant and refugee communities, was launched last October based on pledges from interested donors. </p>
<p>In Scotland, a new investigative journalism site called <a href="https://theferret.scot/">The Ferret</a> also pursues topics that its users say they want; <a href="https://theferret.scot/?s=fracking">fracking</a> was an early example. And in the Netherlands, <a href="https://medium.com/de-correspondent/heres-what-happend-to-that-world-record-in-journalism-crowdfunding-cc5bac50b812#.ve7qe4mso">de Correspondent</a> drew donations of more than a million euros in just eight days simply on the promise of delivering high-quality stories about important topics rather than “the latest hype”.</p>
<p>The other approach reverses the process, in a way, and is closer to the familiar crowdfunding concept – journalists propose ideas they would like to pursue and users back the ones they like. Stories that meet their funding target get written; those that don’t, don’t. Perhaps the most innovative example came from a British site called <a href="http://www.contributoria.com/">Contributoria</a>, backed by the Guardian Media Group. Over a period of 21 months in 2014 and 2015, Contributoria published nearly 800 articles on topics from <a href="http://www.contributoria.com/issue/2014-09/53983b9dde2e235b6e000001/">urban regeneration in Beirut</a> to <a href="http://www.contributoria.com/issue/2014-12/544128ff96bd93a404000051/">a day in the life of a bookie</a>; its writers earned a total of £260,000 over that time, most of it built up from quite small individual payments. </p>
<h2>Sustainability</h2>
<p>However, such experiments have proved hard to sustain. Contributoria closed in October 2015, with its co-founder declaring that crowdfunding was <a href="https://www.journalism.co.uk/news/contributoria-closes-but-its-team-still-sees-a-future-for-people-supported-journalism-/s2/a566305/">just one piece of the puzzle</a>. What the initiative really showed, he told journalism.co.uk, was that people have a “voracious appetite … to be part of the journalism process, including the way it gets financed”. </p>
<p>Perhaps that is, for now, the takeaway point on micropayments. The desire being given voice is less about paying for journalism than for having a stake in it. News organisations fervently hope that stake will be financial, but for users, “ownership” of the news seems more important than the payment involved.</p>
<p>As information proliferates wildly, consumers are saying they want a sense of control over it. Digital media gives them the ability to be reporters, but mostly, they seem to want to be editors: the gatekeepers who decide what news they will see by commissioning a freelance article, or steering an investigative team toward a topic, or engaging with this niche news app but not that one.</p>
<h2>Getting the mix right</h2>
<p>For news organisations, then, micropayments are just one option among many in a fragile and fractured digital ecosystem – something to add to the revenue mix if doing so requires only small investments of time, effort or money. </p>
<p>While experimentation is all to the good, the pay-off from this option seems inherently small. The vast majority of online users <a href="http://www.cjr.org/analysis/reuters_digital_news_report.php">do not pay now for digital news and have no plans to change their ways</a>. There’s no evidence of a massive demand from users for the ability to pay upfront to read news content – and, even if there were, the small amount of revenue generated on any given day would fluctuate considerably depending on what was on offer. This is not the most desirable funding model for organisations that need a stable financial base to support staff, infrastructure and the <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/newsblogs/community/editorsblog/2014/06/holding-power-to-account.html">ongoing ability to hold the powerful to account</a>. </p>
<p>The reverse option – enabling news consumers to steer the direction of journalistic investigations – seems more plausible and the various non-profit enterprises I’ve mentioned are among those offering examples of ways this might work. </p>
<p>But news users aren’t the only ones who like to be in control. Journalists tend to be fiercely committed to the notion of editorial independence – which is another way of saying that they like to decide for themselves what is and isn’t news. Whether they will be willing to share that control – and, if so, what they might be able to extract from users in exchange – remains to be seen.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53586/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jane B. Singer is affiliated with the Online News Association and several academic organisations in the field of journalism studies. </span></em></p>It worked for ‘iTunes’, but news organisations experimenting with ‘pay-to-read’ models are finding that users want to have a say in what makes the news.Jane B. Singer, Professor of Journalism Innovation , City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/549402016-02-24T11:10:20Z2016-02-24T11:10:20ZFive years after the Arab Spring, how does the Middle East use social media?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112635/original/image-20160223-32745-f6qpj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Free Syrian Army fighters on their smartphones.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jalal Al-mamo/Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2011, the <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/syria/2012-01-24/arab-spring-one">Arab Spring rocked</a> many <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-12482291">parts of the Middle East</a>.</p>
<p>Regime change in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya saw the departure of long-established – seemingly untouchable – political leaders and inspired ripples of protest and disquiet in many neighboring Arab nations. The tumultuous ramifications are still playing out in many countries across the region.</p>
<p>During the the immediate aftermath of these events the role played by social media in facilitating change was hotly debated. Perspectives ranged from Malcolm Gladwell’s “<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell">Small change – why the revolution will not be tweeted</a>,” through to John Pollock’s “<a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/425137/streetbook/">Streetbook – how Egyptian and Tunisian youth hacked the Arab Spring</a>” and Clay Shirky’s essay on “<a href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67038/clay-shirky/the-political-power-of-social-media">Technology, the public sphere, and political change</a>.”</p>
<p>Although social media’s contribution to sociopolitical change in the region may have been overstated, it did help amplify discontent and provided global media outlets with valuable on-the-ground insights. At a time of information scarcity, social media offered perspectives that might otherwise have been hard to come by. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"54524633134796800"}"></div></p>
<p>Perhaps the most <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/sep/04/andy-carvin-tweets-revolutions">high-profile proponent</a> of this new way of working was NPR’s <a href="https://twitter.com/acarvin">Andy Carvin</a>, who successfully used <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/the-phone-that-helped-andy-carvin-report-the-arab-spring-is-now-in-the-smithsonian-7234442/?no-ist">Twitter to identify, share and verify stories</a>. The impact of his work led the <em>Columbia Journalism Review</em> to ask: “<a href="http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/is_this_the_worlds_best_twitter_account.php?page=all">Is this the world’s best Twitter account?</a>” </p>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/npr-andy-carvin-tweeting-the-middle-east/2011/04/06/AFcSdhSD_story.html">Carvin’s approach</a>, like many others reporting on this chaotic period, was <a href="http://technosociology.org/?m=201111">not without its faults</a>, but this <a href="https://storify.com/acarvin/how-to-debunk-a-geopolitical-rumor-with-your-twitt2">collaborative model</a> pioneered new ways of <a href="http://doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12074">using social media in a breaking news environment</a>.</p>
<p>Five years on, there remains considerable interest in how social media and mobile technology is <a href="http://www.strategyand.pwc.com/reports/understanding-arab-digital-generation">shaping attitudes and behaviors</a> in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), particularly among the region’s <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/research/topics/middle-east-youth">substantial youth population</a>.</p>
<p>It’s against this backdrop that I produce an <a href="https://damianradcliffe.wordpress.com/2016/01/21/report-social-media-in-the-middle-east-the-story-of-2015/">annual round-up</a> of developments from across the region, analyzing research findings and industry announcements to identify the key trends from the past 12 months.</p>
<p>Here are 15 things we learned in 2015:</p>
<h2>Facebook’s portfolio dominates</h2>
<ol>
<li><p>Facebook is the Middle East’s most used social network, with <a href="http://www.emirates247.com/business/technology/more-facebook-addicts-in-uae-compared-to-global-average-2015-03-18-1.584646">80 million users</a> in the region. The U.S., with <a href="http://www.internetworldstats.com/america.htm#us">192 million subscribers</a>, has more than double the Facebook users of the whole of the MENA region.</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.internetworldstats.com/africa.htm#eg">Egypt, with 27 million users</a>, has MENA’s largest Facebook population; although with fewer (30.5 percent) than a third of the country’s residents on the network, there remains considerable scope for growth. In contrast, 59.7 percent (192 million) of the U.S. is on Facebook.</p></li>
<li><p>The next most populous Facebook nations are Saudi Arabia (<a href="http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats5.htm">12 million users</a>, akin to 43.2 percent of the total population) and Iraq (11 million, representing a third of the country’s 33 million residents). In Iraq, where there are also 11 million internet users, <a href="http://www.internetworldstats.com/middle.htm#iq">Facebook <em>is</em> the Internet</a> for many people.</p></li>
<li><p>WhatsApp, the popular messaging service owned by Facebook, is the <a href="http://www.mideastmedia.org/2015/chapter/social-media.html#subchapter2">leading social media platform</a> in Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), according to Northwestern University in Qatar. Beyond just being an SMS replacement service, <a href="https://www.academia.edu/12440354/Understanding_Emerging_Social_Media_Platforms_in_Qatar_Full_report_">WhatsApp groups are used</a> to discuss religion, cooking <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/collegeofjournalism/entries/0d8a6f02-f9e6-35f5-98b7-a59bd8338b07">and the news</a>, as well as being a platform for a growing group of <a href="http://www.wamda.com/2015/11/social-selling-future-ecommerce-in-middle-east">eCommerce entrepeneurs</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>WhatsApp is also the <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwjlkqW6wYzLAhVM2mMKHRSVBZIQFggoMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wpp.com%2Fgovtpractice%2F%7E%2Fmedia%2Fwppgov%2Ffiles%2Farabsocialmediareport-2015.pdf&usg=AFQjCNGQMdOeATiLkDmuh2XMtoqL_jlzzw&sig2=A2-8yO92X1h-Hak9es3PCw&bvm=bv.114733917,d.cGc">preferred social media channel</a> for 41 percent of social media users in 20 countries across the region, <a href="http://www.arabiangazette.com/social-media-in-the-arab-world-2015-report/">according to a 2015 study</a> produced by the research agency TNS.</p>
<h2>Visually led social networks are very popular</h2></li>
<li><p>Instagram, the popular photo sharing platform – which, like WhatsApp, is owned by Facebook – has <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/influence-visual-storytelling-rise-instagram-middle-east-ema-linaker">25 million users in MENA</a> and <a href="https://www.searchenginejournal.com/instagram-sees-record-gains-hits-400-million-user-milestone/141756/">400 million worldwide</a>, 77.6 million of whom <a href="http://www.statista.com/statistics/293771/number-of-us-instagram-users/">are in the U.S</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>Saudi Arabia has 10.7 million <a href="https://stepfeed.com/business/media-advertising/the-middle-easts-love-for-instagram-including-its-adverts/">monthly active users on Instagram</a>, while there are 2.2 million monthly users in UAE and 3.2 million in Egypt.</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/IpsosMENA/digital-media-forum-2015">Snapchat saw usage grow</a> from just 3 percent to 12 percent among members of a Middle East research panel measured by the global research company Ipsos (2014 data published in 2015).</p></li>
</ol>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"619444159066193920"}"></div></p>
<ol>
<li><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyllTLOnfP4">Videos</a> and <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/here-are-9-snapchat-images-opened-mecca-rest-world-165855">photographs</a> taken by pilgrims visiting Mecca were featured on Snapchat’s “Live Stories” feed during Ramadan, giving non-Muslims a rare insight into the holy city. The move came after around <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-33478729">300,000 people tweeted</a> using the hashtag <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23mecca_live&f=tweets">#Mecca_live</a> to get Snapchat to feature Mecca on their app.</p>
<h2>MENA is a global leader for online video</h2></li>
<li><p>MENA is the fastest growing consumer of <a href="http://m.dubaiprnetwork.com/pr.asp?pr=99891">videos on Facebook</a>. Consumption per head of Facebook embedded videos is twice the global average.</p></li>
<li><p>Turkey is the second most active country <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/alexkantrowitz/why-periscope-is-going-wild-in-turkey#.mvNgQR9nBj">for Periscope streams</a>; and three Turkish cities – Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir – are among the top 10 cities with the most Periscope users worldwide. Periscope, the <a href="https://blog.twitter.com/2015/introducing-periscope">live video streaming app</a>, was launched by Twitter during March 2015.</p></li>
<li><p>Growth in <a href="http://google-arabia.blogspot.ae/2015/12/youtube.html">watch time on YouTube is up</a> over 80 percent year on year in the region, Google data show. After the U.S., MENA enjoys the world’s second-highest <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2407aa1a-adc3-11e3-9ddc-00144feab7de.html">online video viewership</a>.</p>
<h2>Twitter isn’t as big as you might think</h2></li>
<li><p>The short messaging network was a <a href="http://www.washington.edu/news/2011/09/12/new-study-quantifies-use-of-social-media-in-arab-spring/">poster child for the Arab Spring</a>, but <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/feb/25/twitter-facebook-uprisings-arab-libya">usage and impact vary widely</a>. Saudi Arabia and UAE dominate MENA’s Twitter market: 53 percent and 51 percent of social media users in those countries have an account; whereas <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheets/social-networking-fact-sheet/">23 percent of online adults in America</a> – 74 percent of whom are social media users – are on Twitter, according to the Pew Research Center (however, that’s still around <a href="http://www.statista.com/statistics/274564/monthly-active-twitter-users-in-the-united-states/">65 million Americans</a>).</p></li>
<li><p>Usage of Twitter is <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwjlkqW6wYzLAhVM2mMKHRSVBZIQFggoMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wpp.com%2Fgovtpractice%2F%7E%2Fmedia%2Fwppgov%2Ffiles%2Farabsocialmediareport-2015.pdf&usg=AFQjCNGQMdOeATiLkDmuh2XMtoqL_jlzzw&sig2=A2-8yO92X1h-Hak9es3PCw&bvm=bv.114733917,d.cGc">lowest across MENA</a> in Libya (12 percent) and Syria (14 percent), TNS discovered. But, daily usage is highest in Jordan, Libya, Palestine and Syria, and lowest in Saudi Arabia, the same survey found, meaning that despite lower Twitter penetration, users are more active in these countries.</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.mideastmedia.org/2015/chapter/social-media.html#subchapter2">Twitter is popular with younger audiences</a> in both the Middle East and the U.S., although in MENA, 45 percent of Twitter users are age 18-24 compared to 22.6 percent of total users in the U.S. Nonetheless, this age group is still the <a href="http://www.statista.com/statistics/192703/age-distribution-of-users-on-twitter-in-the-united-states/">largest user group</a> for Twitter in the United States. Globally, Twitter has <a href="https://about.twitter.com/company">320 million monthly active users</a>.</p></li>
</ol>
<h2>What it all means</h2>
<p>Post-Arab Spring, the Middle East continues to be active on social media. All of the major networks are seeing growth in user numbers, and usage trends often mirror those found in other regions. This includes the often overlooked strength of Facebook, the rapid rise of visually orientated networks and the smaller than might be expected (given the volume of media coverage it gets) number of Twitter users.</p>
<p>Understanding what social networks the region uses is important for brands, news organizations, NGOs and others wishing to tap into this growing regional market, and who want to know where best to direct their efforts.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the continued growth of social media usage, smartphone take-up, and the rise of visual and video-focused networks means that if the events of 2011 were to be repeated today, we could expect to see even more material originating from social platforms. </p>
<p>For many of the political regimes in the region, this creates a level of nervousness. Turkey, for instance, has repeatedly <a href="http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/essays/2015/how-turkey-uses-social-media/">shut down social networks</a> at various points; and we’ve seen several recent cases in the Gulf region of social media users landing in jail as a result of posts on <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/unitedarabemirates/11453658/American-arrested-in-UAE-after-criticising-employer-on-Facebook.html">social networks</a> and <a href="http://dohanews.co/whatsapp-insults-leads-to-jail-sentence-for-qatar-woman/">messaging apps</a>. </p>
<p>If a Facebook relationship status could describe the ongoing dynamic between the Middle East and social media, it would simply be: it’s complicated.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54940/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Damian Radcliffe continues to engage in freelance creative and consulting work related to his expertise on Middle East matters.</span></em></p>As usage continues to grow in the region, what’s the ongoing dynamic between the Middle East and social media? It’s complicated.Damian Radcliffe, Caroline S. Chambers Professor in Journalism, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/535852016-02-22T10:15:54Z2016-02-22T10:15:54ZAre paywalls saving journalism?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111808/original/image-20160217-19256-1xd0is.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/honestreporting/14231913293">"CC BY-SA HonestReporting.com, flickr/tristanf</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Journalism is in an existential crisis: revenue to news organisations has fallen off a cliff over the past two decades and no clear business model is emerging to sustain news in the digital era.</em></p>
<p><em>Some of the big news organisations are imposing paywalls on their websites, while others believe in free access to their content. In the latest in our series on <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/media-business-models">business models for the news media</a>, Tom Fell weighs up the pros and cons of paywalls.</em></p>
<p>There was a time, not so long ago, when newspaper presses may as well have been printing money. A combination of hefty advertising revenues and circulation growth saw huge profits flow into the coffers of owners and shareholders. But those days are long gone. The announcement that the UK’s Independent titles <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-independent-newspaper-dies-as-it-was-born-in-the-white-heat-of-technology-54690">are to cease printing in March</a> came as a surprise, but many with an eye on the newspaper industry had mused that it was not a question of if, but when, the Independent would go. Circulation had dropped to around 56,000 copies daily and print advertising rates remained in long-term decline.</p>
<p>The problem for newspapers – and their owners – is not that news has suddenly become unfashionable, it’s that making money out of news is proving increasingly difficult. The reasons for the collapse in profits are simple: for more than 100 years newspapers controlled the news and advertising markets, but digital technology has changed everything. Staples such as classified advertising, property and cars went quickly online. Newspapers were too slow to react to classified sites such as CraigsList and Gumtree – and lost the market.</p>
<p>At the same time titles have haemorrhaged circulation as news, once a prized commodity, is now freely available on a diversity of sites. Legacy news organisations initially gave everything away for free online, naively assuming their brands were invincible and that digital advertising would simply replace print loses. However digital revenues have proved elusive, and while online revenues are growing, the growth is nowhere near enough to offset the decline in print advertising and circulation.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111635/original/image-20160216-19218-4hfc10.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111635/original/image-20160216-19218-4hfc10.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111635/original/image-20160216-19218-4hfc10.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111635/original/image-20160216-19218-4hfc10.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111635/original/image-20160216-19218-4hfc10.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111635/original/image-20160216-19218-4hfc10.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111635/original/image-20160216-19218-4hfc10.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111635/original/image-20160216-19218-4hfc10.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">ABC national circulation figures.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ABC</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since the mid 2000s US and UK newspapers have lost close to <a href="http://www.niemanlab.org/2015/03/newsonomics-the-collapse-of-single-copy-sales/">50% in circulation</a> with few exceptions. Specialist titles, Sunday papers and broadsheets have fared slightly less badly than tabloids, but there is no good news for anyone in newsprint. While there are some examples, such as in Germany and Holland, where print circulation has held <a href="http://www.niemanlab.org/2013/10/the-newsonomics-of-2014-for-the-german-press/">up relatively well</a>, most titles are at best managing decline.</p>
<h2>Paying for quality</h2>
<p>Paywalls, introduced by a number of news companies in recent years in an effort to both put a value on the exclusive content they produced and to try to replace lost newspaper circulation, have worked to varying degrees.</p>
<p>In the US, big brands such as The New York Times and The Washington Post have both <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/wolff/2016/02/14/wolff-prints-dead-but-so-digital/80284046/">struggled with how to monetise editorial content online</a>, however both have now implemented somewhat successful paywall models. The Washington Post introduced its somewhat porous <a href="http://www.poynter.org/2013/washington-post-paywall-will-launch-june-12/215323/">paywall in 2013</a> after struggling digitally for a number of years.</p>
<p>A similar approach is in operation at The New York Times, though it has <a href="http://www.niemanlab.org/2015/08/newsonomics-10-numbers-on-the-new-york-times-1-million-digital-subscriber-milestone/">had more successes digitally</a> in attracting paying subscribers and in converting print readers to sign up to seven-day delivery and online subscriptions. It now has more than a million digital subscribers.</p>
<p>News UK introduced a paywall for its news brands, including The Times and The Sunday Times in 2010, with The Sun following in 2013. While the strategy <a href="http://www.inma.org/blogs/conference/post.cfm/hard-paywall-takes-the-times-from-loss-to-profit">has been successful</a> with 170,000 Times subscribers, the company abandoned The Sun’s paywall late in 2015, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/oct/30/sun-website-to-scrap-paywall">and announced plans</a> to aggressively grow its digital platform in 2016.</p>
<p>Of all media organisations with paywall or metered models, the <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/the-financial-times-and-the-future-of-journalism">Financial Times remains one of the most successful</a>. Of a paid circulation of 720,000 in 2014, more than 500,000 were digital, up 20% on 2013. <a href="http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/ft-digital-subscribers-14-cent-520k-now-make-70-cent-fts-paid-circulation">Half year figures for 2015</a> showed a year-on-year rise to 737,000 total circulation, with 520,000 digital subscribers.</p>
<p>The German media giant, Axel Springer, announced it was <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-09/axel-springer-considers-paywall-for-business-insider-upday-app">considering introducing paywalls</a> at its Upday app and newly acquired Business Insider last December. It has already introduced a metered paywall at popular Berlin daily Bild and banned readers with adblockers installed on their PCs from accessing its content.</p>
<p>Australian media giant <a href="http://www.newscorpaustralia.com/">News Corp Australia</a> – which owns The Australian, the Sydney based Daily Telegraph and most of the main regional titles – put its content behind a paywall in 2013. Fairfax, which owns the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, also introduced paywalls in 2013 – and <a href="http://thenewdaily.com.au/money/2016/02/17/fairfax-step-closer-ending-print/">subscriber numbers are steady while print circulation is falling off</a>.</p>
<h2>Dead giveaways</h2>
<p>But while media companies are still making significant revenues from print, any revenue from digital, while impressive in growth terms, remains tiny.
Digital revenues at The Sydney Morning Herald in 2014 were A$15m, compared with A$242m from print circulation and print advertising. Figures for 2015 from the Times Co (The New York Times parent company) show that <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/30/business/media/new-york-times-co-reports-9-million-profit-in-3rd-quarter.html">digital subscriptions</a> were responsible for just under US$49m of US$365m in revenue during the third quarter of 2015.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111815/original/image-20160217-30543-cah9lc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111815/original/image-20160217-30543-cah9lc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111815/original/image-20160217-30543-cah9lc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111815/original/image-20160217-30543-cah9lc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111815/original/image-20160217-30543-cah9lc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111815/original/image-20160217-30543-cah9lc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111815/original/image-20160217-30543-cah9lc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111815/original/image-20160217-30543-cah9lc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Print versus online revenue for US newspapers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pew Research Center</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And not everyone has made a success of paywalls. Mid-market popular newspapers and tabloids, where a heady mix of “gotcha” journalism, crime stories, and celebrity and entertainment news have proved a recipe for huge popular success in the UK, have in most part steered away from paywalls – favouring instead high-volume mass market free content, with a heavy emphasis on content that plays well on social media. </p>
<p>The Daily Mail’s MailOnline site remains free, and is one of the <a href="http://www.journalism.org/media-indicators/digital-top-50-online-news-entities-2015/">largest news sites in the world</a>, with a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/feb/20/mail-online-gains-17m-unique-browsers-as-newspaper-sites-bounce-back">global reach or more than 200m unique users</a> each month.</p>
<p>Other sites, including the UK’s Guardian, have remained free, relying instead on revenue from digital advertising. However the rise of adblockers has severely damaged the ability of such news sites to make money from advertising. The Guardian <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jan/25/guardian-news-media-to-cut-running-costs">reported losses of £53m in 2015</a> and announced it would cut costs by 20%, blaming a sharp decline in print advertising and slower than expected growth in digital revenues.</p>
<p>For smaller players, the market remains challenging. Regional and local newspapers have little or no prospect of introducing successful paywall models. Economies of scale mean their potential audiences are too small to monetise via digital advertising. For now, most are clinging to their print editions (<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2013/aug/14/mediabusiness-local-newspapers">which remain profitable</a>) and using websites to build brands and market share.</p>
<p>ABC1 readership newspapers – in other words, those appealing to the middle classes – and niche brands such as business titles, where content is exclusive and in demand, seem to be making paywalls work. For everyone else the future looks bleak.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53585/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Felle does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Comment may be free, but newspapers have got to make money somehow.Tom Felle, Lecturer in News and Digital Journalism, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/547862016-02-15T18:29:42Z2016-02-15T18:29:42ZThe future is digital – let’s hope the online-only Independent will be part of it<p>When it was announced that the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/12153947/The-Independent-newspaper-confirms-an-end-to-print-production.html">The Independent was to cease producing the print editions</a> of its daily and Sunday titles from March 26, the reaction of journalists and columnists to the news (and the inevitable redundancies to come as a consequence) was of course one of palpable sadness.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/the-independent-newspaper-dies-as-it-was-born-in-the-white-heat-of-technology-54690%20">On this site</a>, Jonathan Foster, a former journalist who was in at the Independent’s birth, wrote of a sequence of events which turned “the greatest Fleet Street success story of modern times into a protracted tragedy”. The political editor of the New Statesman, <a href="http://www.thedrum.com/news/2016/02/12/twitter-reaction-what-industry-saying-independent-print-closure">George Eaton,</a> tweeted:</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"698121603964628993"}"></div></p>
<p>And then <a href="http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/sad-day-us-bad-day-journalism-industry-bemoans-loss-independent-newspapers">Daily Mirror</a> associate editor Kevin Maguire wrote that he was: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>mourning loss of The Independent, a vital liberal voice in a British press dominated by Tory papers. Thoughts with good journos losing jobs.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Online news site, the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2016/02/12/the-independent-closed-best-front-pages-debate_n_9217300.html????&ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000067">Huffington Post</a> published 11 “Independent’ Front Pages That Moved Us All And Changed The Debate” and praised the Indy on its “proud status as an ‘outsider’ newspaper, one that pushed the boundaries of design and reporting to earn itself a respected, established space on the British media scene”.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"698123691062853632"}"></div></p>
<p>It took journalist and academic <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/11/independent-ceasing-print-death-medium-not-message">Brian Cathcart</a> in the Guardian to remind us that, hang on, this wasn’t about complete end of a great tradition – this was about the death of a “redundant medium”. It is what journalists find out and write, and are able to tell their audiences and readers, that really matters – and we should not waste our energy lamenting dead-tree technology, wrote Cathcart.</p>
<p>This is precisely what struck me about the coverage and analysis: job losses notwithstanding, the end of the print version of The Independent was greeted as if it were the end of journalism itself. Are the likes of Robert Fisk, Patrick Cockburn, Mark Steele and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown to be silenced? We must assume not and trust the word of current editor <a href="http://www.jomec.co.uk/blog/wp-admin/%20http:/www.independent.co.uk/voices/the-independent-launches-its-next-digital-chapter-a6870846.html">Amol Rajan</a> who wrote in a letter to readers that the spirit and quality of The Independent will endure.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111537/original/image-20160215-22563-1mwzph1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111537/original/image-20160215-22563-1mwzph1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111537/original/image-20160215-22563-1mwzph1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111537/original/image-20160215-22563-1mwzph1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111537/original/image-20160215-22563-1mwzph1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111537/original/image-20160215-22563-1mwzph1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111537/original/image-20160215-22563-1mwzph1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111537/original/image-20160215-22563-1mwzph1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Amol Rajan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Independent</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But among the nostalgia and reminiscences about the Indy’s glory days was the acceptance that the decisions taken by owners ESI media were, in a business sense, entirely rational. As Rajan put it, the plain fact is that there simply aren’t enough people willing to pay for printed news. With circulations continuing to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/media-blog/2016/feb/11/the-independent-a-newspaper-killed-by-the-internet%20">spiral downwards</a> (daily sales of the Independent stand at around 40,000, down from the highs of 423,000 in 1990) the future of the print edition would have been one of managing further decline.</p>
<h2>Interesting times</h2>
<p>There are those who think that this is just the beginning of a process of radical change for the national newspaper industry. At least that was the view of Evgeny Lebedev, owner of ESI, who wrote in <a href="http://www.jomec.co.uk/blog/wp-admin/%C2%A0http:/www.ibtimes.co.uk/indy-closes-read-letter-esi-media-owner-evgeny-lebedev-independent-newspaper-staff-1543509">an email</a> to Independent staff that their news titles would be the first of many leading newspapers to embrace a wholly digital future, stating that the UK print newspaper market conditions meant such change was inevitable. In an interview with <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/feb/12/evgeny-lebedev-newspaper-industry-in-denial-about-print-titles">The Guardian</a> he said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I genuinely believe that the future is digital and that the industry in denial … the figures speak for themselves … The question should not be why we are doing it, but why others in the industry are not.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s a very pertinent question, one which the Guardian has itself pondered on occasion. In 2012 <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/media/9614953/Guardian-seriously-discussing-end-to-print-edition.html">the Daily Telegraph</a> reported that Adam Freeman, then the Guardian’s commercial chief, stating the newspaper was on a “mission” to be able to stand alone as a digital-only publication. And in 2013, the <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/10/07/freedom-of-information">New Yorker</a> magazine quoted the (now former) editor Alan Rusbridger saying that “he could envisage a paperless Guardian in five to ten years”.</p>
<p>Well, we shall see about that but Lebedev’s views are by no means universally held. In an editorial on Saturday, <a href="http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/times-says-dejection-over-independent-closures-misplaced-print-will-co-exist-digital-long-time-come%20%C2%A0%C2%A0%20%20%C2%A0">The Times</a> assured its readers that print would continue to exist alongside the digital format “for a long time to come” going on to say:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Long before the digital revolution, newspapers confronted the migration of news to broadcasters. Newspapers will continue to innovate in the face of the internet revolution and it is our belief that print will co-exist with digital for a long time to come. A loss of diversity in media voices is to be regretted but there is no reason for gloom about the future of newsprint.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the Press Gazette <a href="http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/content/contrary-what-evgeny-lebedev-might-say-ten-reasons-why-death-print-not-inevitable?platform=hootsuite%20">Dominic Ponsford</a> maintained an even more optimistic tone. In a piece entitled: “Contrary to what Evgeny Lebedev might say, ten reasons why the death of print is not ‘inevitable’” Ponsford pointed to the success of children’s weekly newspaper First News which has grown its sale nearly every year since its launch in 2007 and now averages more than 76,000 copies a week. He also cited the success of the free Metro, the free NME and Lebvedev’s own free London Evening Standard. As Ponsford rightly iterates, it’s not getting people to read print that’s the problem: it’s getting them to pay for it.</p>
<p>There’s the rub. Who is now going to pay for the news The Independent will produce? Lebedev has the answer: “The Independent will now offer advertisers access to the world’s largest commercial platform for truly independent journalism.”</p>
<h2>Sane and salient</h2>
<p>While we wait to see how that one plays out, a final detail worth noting about the demise of the printed Independent is the space it will leave on the newsstands across the country. As <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/media-blog/2016/feb/11/the-independent-a-newspaper-killed-by-the-internet%20.">Jane Martinson</a> argued, the lack of its physical presence raises issues about media plurality in a market dominated by right-wing titles.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"697639722097758208"}"></div></p>
<p>The Independent is rare pro-EU voice in a anti-Brussels maelstrom and the fact is that three months before the referendum, we will no longer be able enter shops and see its often sane and salient front pages sitting next to the Sun and Daily Mail. That is a real shame.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54786/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The loss of the printed Independent will leave a big hole on the nation’s newstands.John Jewell, Director of Undergraduate Studies, School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/494172015-10-23T19:22:22Z2015-10-23T19:22:22ZDoes ‘Twitter Moments’ herald the comeback of human beings?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99535/original/image-20151023-27601-lf3oz5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Maybe Moments is just the human helping hand new Twitter users need.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-253197052/stock-photo-kiev-ukraine-january-hand-holds-twitter-logotype-bird-printed-on-paper-twitter-is-an.html">Twitter image via rvlsoft / Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Earlier this month, Twitter <a href="https://blog.twitter.com/2015/moments-the-best-of-twitter-in-an-instant-0">launched a new feature</a> called Moments, which offers a curated and frequently updated collection of tweets that the company describes as the “best of what’s happening on Twitter.”</p>
<p>Under the headings “Today,” “News,” “Sports,” “Entertainment” and “Fun,” <a href="http://mashable.com/2015/10/06/twitter-moments-hands-on/#DUXwUZNSESqn">Moments showcases a series of text, video and photo tweets</a> on topics ranging from the latest developments in the US presidential race to cute pets.</p>
<p>Moments has attracted a great deal of attention, both for the fact that it represents a major effort by Twitter to reverse sluggish user growth, and for the fact that it relies on human curators. This reliance on human expertise raises important questions over the value of people in tech-driven information services and the limits of today’s cutting-edge software.</p>
<h2>Why does Twitter need Moments now?</h2>
<p>The main driver behind the development of Moments is Twitter’s stagnating user growth.</p>
<p>Twitter, which <a href="https://about.twitter.com/company/press/milestones">launched in 2006</a>, has struggled to achieve mass penetration of the US market. According <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/08/19/the-demographics-of-social-media-users/">to data from the Pew Research Center</a>, only 20% of the US adult population uses Twitter, compared to 62% who use Facebook, 26% who use Pinterest, 24% who use Instagram and 22% who use LinkedIn.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99403/original/image-20151022-8013-t77qjc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99403/original/image-20151022-8013-t77qjc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99403/original/image-20151022-8013-t77qjc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99403/original/image-20151022-8013-t77qjc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99403/original/image-20151022-8013-t77qjc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99403/original/image-20151022-8013-t77qjc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99403/original/image-20151022-8013-t77qjc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99403/original/image-20151022-8013-t77qjc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Twitter’s Monthly Active User growth, as reported in quarterly SEC filings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Furthermore, Twitter’s user growth has been slowing over the last three years, falling from 18% in the first quarter of 2012 to just 3% during the second quarter of this year.</p>
<p>Freshly reinstated Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/29/technology/twitter-quarterly-earnings.html?_r=0">has diagnosed slowing user growth</a> as a symptom of a confusing platform that’s difficult to navigate. Moments is intended to help solve these twin problems.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99404/original/image-20151022-8010-1e5xzi6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99404/original/image-20151022-8010-1e5xzi6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99404/original/image-20151022-8010-1e5xzi6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99404/original/image-20151022-8010-1e5xzi6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99404/original/image-20151022-8010-1e5xzi6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99404/original/image-20151022-8010-1e5xzi6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99404/original/image-20151022-8010-1e5xzi6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99404/original/image-20151022-8010-1e5xzi6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Twitter user activities, based on data from GlobalWebIndex’s third quarter 2015 study.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>First, Moments is designed to highlight the key function of Twitter. Data from <a href="http://insight.globalwebindex.net/social">GlobalWebIndex’s Social report</a> indicate that Twitter is most widely <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/moments-could-boost-twitters-users-2015-10">used as a news service</a>. As the chart shows, 41% of Twitter users report having read a news story on Twitter in the last 30 days, and 35% report having logged in to see what’s happening (without posting), or to look at trending topics.</p>
<p>Moments facilitates this sort of passive monitoring by providing a one-stop look at the news of the day. It highlights what users find most attractive about Twitter: access to interesting, current information. For new users, Moments can be an easy introduction that helps explain what the platform does.</p>
<p>Second, Moments makes it easier to navigate Twitter. Instead of the disorganized, reverse chronological timeline that the platform’s experienced users are familiar with, Moments provides a stable and structured collection of content. For new users who find the Twitter interface confusing, Moments offers clarity and ease.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"657430281276792832"}"></div></p>
<p>If Dorsey’s diagnosis is correct, Moments may help increase user growth for Twitter. However, not all observers agree that user confusion is the key culprit of stagnant growth.</p>
<p>For example, Harvard Business Review contributor Umair Haque <a href="https://medium.com/bad-words/why-twitter-s-dying-and-what-you-can-learn-from-it-9ed233e37974#.wfuowkt95">posits an alternative theory</a> – namely, that Twitter’s growth has slowed because of the abusive interactions that often occur on the platform. So it remains to be seen whether or not Moments is the correct medicine for Twitter’s ailment of an only slightly growing user base.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99534/original/image-20151023-27619-tdoi48.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99534/original/image-20151023-27619-tdoi48.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99534/original/image-20151023-27619-tdoi48.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=254&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99534/original/image-20151023-27619-tdoi48.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=254&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99534/original/image-20151023-27619-tdoi48.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=254&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99534/original/image-20151023-27619-tdoi48.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=319&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99534/original/image-20151023-27619-tdoi48.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=319&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99534/original/image-20151023-27619-tdoi48.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=319&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Examples of abusive tweets sent during the ongoing Gamergate controversy. Captured by the Washington Post in 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Twitter, via the Washington Post</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How does Moments work?</h2>
<p>Perhaps the more interesting aspect of Moments is the technology behind it – because it can’t even really be called technology. </p>
<p>The content in Moments is not selected by algorithm; <a href="https://about.twitter.com/company/moments-guidelines">it’s entirely selected by human beings at Twitter</a>, with help from news organizations like The New York Times and the Washington Post. In other words, rather than looking for software-based solutions to its user-growth problem, Twitter has turned to human beings. For Twitter, this means higher-quality content and less risk of embarrassing errors (which the company experienced with <a href="http://recode.net/2015/04/27/twitters-latest-attempt-at-content-misses-the-mark/">earlier, algorithm-based attempts at aggregation</a>). </p>
<p>For news organizations, involvement with features like Moments represents an opportunity to attract traffic to their sites as they struggle to adapt to <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/09/24/how-social-media-is-reshaping-news/">the impact that social media is having on the news business</a>.</p>
<p>Twitter’s decision to use human curators comes at a time when the threat of <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/21661017">sophisticated robotics and software</a> to human employees in industries ranging from <a href="http://qz.com/521848/robots-are-taking-your-white-collar-jobs-too/">food service to journalism</a> has become a prominent news topic. But as concern over this issue mounts, a growing number of technology companies are replacing algorithms and software with human beings.</p>
<p>Examples abound beyond Twitter’s human-curated Moments. At YouTube, an Alphabet (formerly Google) subsidiary, the company recently announced that it would <a href="http://youtube-global.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/eyewitness-video-on-youtube-your-window.html">partner with the humans at news agency Storyful</a> to curate a video news feed. Similarly, Apple has invested in expert human curators for both its <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/16/apple-news-app-editors-curation">news app</a> and its <a href="http://mashable.com/2015/06/30/apple-music-hands-on/#T01n0SBZvSqN">music service</a>.</p>
<p>These examples are a marked contrast to the use of algorithms that often shapes feeds. Facebook’s news feed, for example, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/help/327131014036297/">uses an algorithm</a> that takes into account who you follow, what you “like” and which of your connections you interact with most frequently to determine what content to show.</p>
<p>One possible reading of these announcements is that they herald the return of the human being, that they represent an acknowledgment that there’s some value to human judgment that cannot be replicated by mere software. However, a more realistic interpretation may be that these decisions by tech companies merely reflect their recognition of the limitations of the current generations of software.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.wnyc.org/radio/#/ondemand/534614">In an interview with Note to Self</a>, Yoshua Bengio, a professor of computer science at the University of Montreal, emphasized how underdeveloped current machine learning or artificial intelligence systems are. Comparing such systems to human infants, Bengio explained, “They are even younger than babies; they are proto-babies, they are not nearly as smart as babies.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"616910438417174528"}"></div></p>
<p>This proto-infancy in machine learning was highlighted by an incident earlier this year, when Google’s photo recognition software <a href="http://www.wnyc.org/story/deep-problem-deep-learning/">mistakenly labeled an African-American couple as gorillas</a>. Google apologized for the error, and took immediate steps to prevent any similar problems, but the inherent issue remains; current software is just too stupid to make the calls that adult humans would make intuitively. And companies like Apple, Alphabet and Twitter have too much at stake to bet their businesses on software that is at the “proto-baby stage.”</p>
<p>So it’s likely a mistake to proclaim we’re entering a new era of human beings at places like Apple and Twitter. Instead, these developments may represent a pause in the march of mechanization. Once the algorithms grow up, human curators may go the way of human auto workers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49417/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Felicity Duncan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Twitter recently launched Moments, seemingly to solve a business problem. The cutting-edge technology it relies on isn’t technology at all, but rather human curators.Felicity Duncan, Assistant Professor of Digital Communication and Social Media, Cabrini CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/451452015-09-22T09:06:27Z2015-09-22T09:06:27ZHow native advertisements could be the solution to the internet’s bad-ad problem<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/95576/original/image-20150921-31495-1nnszjk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ads that appear in broadsheet newspapers continue to have more appeal than their annoying, online counterparts. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?country_code=US&page_number=2&position=7&safesearch=1&search_language=en&search_source=search_form&search_type=keyword_search&searchterm=internet%20advertising&sort_method=relevance2&source=search&timestamp=1442847884&tracking_id=Qerb8FInqD4_TWzU6cmLrw&use_local_boost=1&version=llv1&page=2&inline=109320119">'Laptop,' via www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Website ads fidget, interrupt and mislead. They’re loud and ungainly. They fixate on things you may not care about and they sometimes spread viruses. </p>
<p>Like adolescent boys, their designers seem to be confusing annoyance for affection. </p>
<p>The current state of website advertising is so bad, in fact, that the controversial – and increasingly popular – type of advertisements known as native ads (which are built to <a href="http://www.sharethrough.com/resources/desktop-native-ad-examples/">mimic genuine editorial content</a>) may well be an improvement. </p>
<h2>Controversial but growing</h2>
<p>A Business Insider report <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/spending-on-native-ads-will-soar-as-publishers-and-advertisers-take-notice-2014-11">predicts</a> spending on native ads, counting social media posts, will grow from a US$7.9 billion market today to more than $21 billion by 2018. Publishers as diverse as Buzzfeed and The New York Times have made native advertising a key component of their digital financial strategies. </p>
<p>The practice has attracted controversy for some publishers (<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/02/on-the-atlantics-scientology-ad-and-aftermath/273447/">such as a 2013 gaffe</a> in which The Atlantic found itself embarrassed by a pro-Scientology advertorial) and has been mocked by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_F5GxCwizc">John Oliver as ludicrously dishonest</a>. Others have simply pointed out that native ads are misleading because, as <a href="http://contently.com/strategist/2015/09/08/article-or-ad-when-it-comes-to-native-no-one-knows/">this recent Contently study found</a>, many people can’t tell the differences between articles and ads.</p>
<p>But for consumers of digital content, none of this may matter. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/04/does-having-native-advertising-make-a-news-site-less-credible-this-study-at-least-suggests-no/">Research I conducted</a> with a colleague, Brady Teufel, indicates that the presence of native advertisements doesn’t necessarily impact a news site’s credibility. </p>
<p>We had people examine mock-ups of a news site made to resemble Buzzfeed. Half of the viewers saw a website with native ads, while the other half saw a site with traditional display ads. Then we asked them how credible they thought the site was. The result was that people rated both versions of the site as equally credible. </p>
<p>We also examined whether older people and younger people had different reactions. They did, in the sense that older people thought both versions were more credible than did younger people. But their credibility judgments didn’t change based on the <em>type</em> of advertising.</p>
<h2>The dismal state of online advertising</h2>
<p>If you’re wondering why people don’t seem to hold potentially misleading ads against publishers, the answer may lie in the fact that people have been conditioned since the dawn of the internet to accept that online ads will be annoying.</p>
<p>Although people generally say they don’t like ads of any type, there’s <a href="http://www.researchgate.net/publication/228433469_An_integrated_model_of_advertising_clutter_in_offline_and_online_media">good research</a> that shows online ads are far more likely to be seen as unwelcome clutter than are traditional print or television ads. </p>
<p>In fact, for some offline media products, such as fashion magazines, Sunday newspapers and the Super Bowl, advertisements can be part of the product’s <em>appeal</em>.</p>
<p>It’s hard to find a similar analogy for online ads. </p>
<p>A lot of this is based on a fundamental difference between online and offline advertising. While many offline ads are built with specific venues in mind – individual television channels or specific magazines with specific audiences – online advertisements are more often driven by an individual’s internet browsing history.</p>
<p>That is, the ads aren’t designed to look good and behave nicely with the site; they’re built to pop up and demand attention based on what you might have shown Google, Yahoo or Facebook that you’re interested in.</p>
<h2>Creative natives</h2>
<p>Native advertisements could be part of the solution to the internet’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-does-social-media-advertising-fall-flat-40796">bad-ad problem</a>. Ads you might call “creative natives”– Buzzfeed’s <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/buick/life-changing-things-you-could-accomplish-in-24?utm_term=4ldr7xc#.bbzKozAzy">sponsored listicles</a> are one example – are often made in collaboration with the publisher, and are attuned to the characteristics of the site.</p>
<p>Publishers are interested in native advertising in part because traditional web advertising pays poorly. A person running a local news site that attracts, say, 20,000 visitors a month would be lucky <a href="http://monetizepros.com/display-advertising/average-cpm-rates/">to earn about $60 a month per display ad</a>. Even with multiple ads, that’s not going to pay to hire even a single reporter or editor. </p>
<p>Natives pay better, in part because publishers often charge brands a fee to create native advertisements, in addition to the costs of running the ad, <a href="http://digiday.com/publishers/search-native-advertisings-new-pricing-models/">although approaches differ.</a> They’re also harder for consumers to avoid through the use of ad-blocking software.</p>
<p>Native ads can also be pretty cool. Beth Egan, an associate professor of advertising at the S I Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, points to a recent collaboration between Netflix and The New York Times as an example of natives done well. </p>
<p><a href="http://paidpost.nytimes.com/netflix/women-inmates-separate-but-not-equal.html?_r=0">The ad</a>, meant to promote the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black, was an immersive, engaging piece on the topic of women in prison that never did directly promote the show. </p>
<p>“The idea is to drive interest, even if it does not explicitly endorse a product,” Egan said at a recent journalism conference panel on the topic. </p>
<p>Unfortunately these types of custom-made “creative natives” take time and talent, both of which cost money. </p>
<p>So web viewers may be more likely to encounter another type of native advertising known as <a href="http://www.sharethrough.com/resources/content-recommendation/">content recommendation widgets</a>. These are blocks of “story” links that appear at the bottom of many websites and may have titles such as “recommended for you” or “from around the web.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/95581/original/image-20150921-31531-bfcbcl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/95581/original/image-20150921-31531-bfcbcl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/95581/original/image-20150921-31531-bfcbcl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95581/original/image-20150921-31531-bfcbcl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95581/original/image-20150921-31531-bfcbcl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95581/original/image-20150921-31531-bfcbcl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95581/original/image-20150921-31531-bfcbcl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95581/original/image-20150921-31531-bfcbcl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Look familiar?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yes, the “stories” in recommendation widgets are often crass (and sometimes borderline pornographic). Nonetheless, these types of ads are easy for publishers to place on their sites, and they add another layer of advertising revenue to the bottom line.</p>
<p>While native advertisements offer the potential to make more money for publishers and offer higher-quality advertisements, their future is uncertain. </p>
<p>There’s a chance that as people get used to seeing natives and understand them for the ads they really are, they will stop clicking. And if people stop clicking, marketers will stop buying. </p>
<p>And then talk will turn to the next trend in advertising – whatever that may be.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45145/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patrick Howe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many readers can’t tell the difference between native ads and editorial content. So will a web publisher’s credibility take a hit if it ‘goes native’ with its ad strategy?Patrick Howe, Assistant Professor of Journalism, California Polytechnic State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/407262015-05-21T09:57:55Z2015-05-21T09:57:55ZNewspapers’ ongoing search for subscription revenue: from paywalls to micropayments<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82423/original/image-20150520-11413-1rdvlf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Over 500 daily newspapers now use paywalls. Are they working?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&search_tracking_id=oVGmnreWa5Hg88EIafRfKQ&searchterm=newspaper%20online&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=198603977">'laptop' via www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s no mystery that newspapers are struggling to make money: between 2006 and 2014, the industry lost approximately <a href="http://www.journalism.org/2015/04/29/newspapers-fact-sheet/">30 billion dollars</a> in advertising.</p>
<p>In response, many news publishers have experimented with ways to increase digital advertising revenue through native advertising, or through collaborative models like the recently-announced <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/13/technology/facebook-media-venture-to-include-nbc-buzzfeed-and-new-york-times.html?_r=0">Facebook Instant</a>. Still, many newspapers continue to tinker with paywalls – which require readers to pay to access online content.</p>
<p>But are paywalls viable?</p>
<p>So far the record is mixed. For some publications like The New Yorker they seem to be <a href="http://www.niemanlab.org/2015/03/after-the-archive-came-down-the-new-yorkers-revamped-paywall-is-driving-new-readers-and-subscribers/">working</a>, while other newspapers like the Toronto Star are <a href="http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/03/07/note-to-readers-star-to-end-paid-digital-subscriptions-on-april-1.html">getting rid of them</a>. </p>
<p>It’s difficult to discern the exact trajectory of this moving target – especially since reliable data on their revenues are often unavailable – but there are noticeable trends. As the paywall model continues to evolve, other revenue models are emerging, including another tactic used by news publishers: micropayments.</p>
<h2>A brief history of paywalls</h2>
<p>A paywall basically acts as a barrier between an internet user and a news organization’s online content. To access the content, users must purchase a digital subscription. </p>
<p>While most newspapers only began experimenting with this model in the past few years, a longer history traces back to The Wall Street Journal, which launched the first paywall in 1997. Despite its success, general news outlets feared that launching a paywall would reduce online readership and digital advertising revenue – a tension that continues today. </p>
<p>In 2009, with newspaper revenue plummeting, a lively debate erupted over the paywall model. Publications like <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/may/11/newspapers-web-media-pay-wall">The Guardian</a>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/business/media/08pay.html?pagewa">The New York Times</a>, <a href="http://time.com/3270666/how-to-save-your-newspaper/">Time Magazine</a> and <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2009/05/shhhh-newspaper-publishers-are-quietly-holding-a-very-very-important-conclave-today-will-you-soon-be-paying-for-online-content/18409/">The Atlantic</a> published op-eds debating the paywall model’s viability. </p>
<p>Even Mark Cuban <a href="http://blogmaverick.com/2009/02/22/how-cable-satellite-can-save-the-newspaper-business/">weighed in</a>. The renowned entrepreneur and owner of the Dallas Mavericks argued that newspapers should put their most valuable content behind a paywall and partner with cable companies to offer customers a heavily discounted digital subscription rate (such as five cents per month).</p>
<p>While only a handful of publications in the US had a paywall in 2009, by 2014 – largely as a response to declining revenue – over <a href="http://www.poynter.org/news/mediawire/247555/newspaper-industry-narrowed-revenue-loss-in-2013-as-paywall-plans-increased/">500</a> daily newspapers were using one. Since then, the debate has shifted from whether paywalls <em>could</em> work to asking whether they <em>are</em> working. </p>
<h2>The empirical record</h2>
<p>After several years of trial and error, there have been noteworthy successes, along with failures. </p>
<p>In 2011 The New York Times <a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/03/17/134621239/new-york-times-unveils-metered-online-paywall">launched</a> their “metered” paywall, a model similar to the Financial Times’. </p>
<p>Metered paywalls block a reader from accessing articles once they reach a certain threshold. The New York Times initially allowed readers to access 20 articles (now it’s 10) for free each month. This model has been increasingly <a href="https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/research-review/paywall-decisions/">emulated</a> because it is believed that only core readers, who are the most likely to purchase a digital subscription for unlimited access, will eventually be blocked from viewing more articles.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82424/original/image-20150520-11413-1yuvpwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82424/original/image-20150520-11413-1yuvpwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82424/original/image-20150520-11413-1yuvpwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82424/original/image-20150520-11413-1yuvpwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82424/original/image-20150520-11413-1yuvpwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82424/original/image-20150520-11413-1yuvpwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82424/original/image-20150520-11413-1yuvpwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A metered paywall notice for the South China Times informs readers how many free articles they have remaining before they’ll have to pay a fee.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/clankennedy/9028948796/">Ian Kennedy/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Meanwhile, casual readers – and the publication’s advertising dollars – are not affected. These “<a href="http://www.poynter.org/news/mediawire/326073/ken-doctor-newspaper-companies-should-focus-on-news-apps/">fly-bys</a>” account for 93% of news websites’ unique visitors, so their retention is highly valued. </p>
<p>Newspapers have also succeeded in asking print subscribers to pay <a href="http://www.poynter.org/news/mediawire/141628/9-reasons-newspapers-are-suddenly-asking-print-subscribers-to-pay-for-full-web-access/">slightly more</a> for a digital subscription, while <a href="http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/gannetts_paywall_plan_flounder.php">reducing</a> its price if new customers will accept a Sunday paper. They’ll also allow readers to access articles found through search or social media even if they’ve exceeded their <a href="http://www.themediabriefing.com/article/paywall-approaches-gated-access">monthly limit</a>. </p>
<p>The Gannett Company, whose newspapers include USA Today and The Arizona Republic, implemented metered paywalls at <a href="http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/reports/white-papers/10-secrets-successful-meters-paywalls-reader-revenue-strategies/">78</a> of its newspapers. In 2013, digital subscriptions added more than <a href="http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/media/2014/08/8550225/post-spin-gannett-publishing-will-seek-acquisitions-ceo-says">$100 million</a> in operating income. </p>
<p>And in 2014, digital subscriptions at the New York Times Company earned <a href="http://www.mondaynote.com/2015/02/15/the-nytimes-could-be-worth-19bn-instead-of-2bn/">$169 million</a>. While these substantial gains are cause for optimism, they’re tempered by the fear that paywalls may only generate a temporary boost, as subscription revenue has notably stalled at the <a href="http://www.niemanlab.org/2015/01/newsonomics-how-deep-is-the-newspaper-industrys-money-hole/">Tribune Publishing Company and Gannett</a>.</p>
<p>On the other hand, some newspapers have decided to take down their paywall altogether. In 2013, The Dallas Morning News removed a “hard” paywall, which rarely allowed readers to access articles without a digital subscription. The Columbia Journalism Review subsequently declared that hard paywalls made sense for only “<a href="http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/the_dallas_morning_news_drops.php">the most essential news providers</a>” – places where readers cannot find the same information elsewhere, like The Wall Street Journal’s coverage of finance.</p>
<p>After a similar misstep – which was exacerbated by publishing some of their news content on a free website – the San Francisco Chronicle took down its hard paywall <a href="http://www.poynter.org/news/mediawire/221127/san-francisco-chronicle-drops-its-paywall/">five months</a> after its launch. </p>
<p>The Toronto Star hadn’t made such errors, but nonetheless jettisoned its paywall after growth had “<a href="http://mumbrella.com.au/toronto-star-scrapped-digital-paywall-as-it-was-expensive-and-had-a-high-churn-rate-292661">plateaued</a>” to focus on <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/torstar-swings-to-profit-on-boost-from-harlequin-sale/article21452577/">increasing digital ad revenue and readers</a> with an improved tablet edition. </p>
<p>These cases notwithstanding, it’s difficult to predict whether a paywall will help or hurt a publication’s bottom line. Newspapers have generally been unwilling to publicly discuss how much revenue their paywall is generating, and how it’s impacting their audience size and advertising revenue. </p>
<p>Simply put: newspapers are experimenting, but they aren’t sharing the results. We only know for certain that paywalls are being implemented, that the metered model is preferred, and that the increases in subscription revenue – while substantial for some – haven’t matched losses in advertising revenue.</p>
<h2>The future of paywalls</h2>
<p>Paywalls may work as a partial solution for finding new revenue streams but the search for a better subscription model continues. In March, two new models involving “micropayments” – in which readers pay a small fee (roughly 25 cents) to read a single article – made headlines.</p>
<p>First, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal signed up to the news aggregator <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-new-york-times-wall-street-journal-the-washington-post-sign-up-to-blendle-2015-3">Blendle</a>. Following the so-called <a href="http://www.poynter.org/news/mediawire/326571/new-york-times-washington-post-wall-street-journal-sign-with-dutch-itunes-for-news/">iTunes model</a>, this Dutch startup allows readers in the Netherlands to make micropayments to access individual newspaper and magazine articles from a variety of publications. </p>
<p>By hosting a variety of news publishers, both individual publishers and Blendle are hoping that individuals will be more likely to use micropayments. Think of iTunes: while an individual might not sign up to use iTunes if it were just for one record company, the fact that the largest companies are using iTunes makes listeners more likely to use the service and for companies to profit from it. </p>
<p>On the other hand, a newspaper could try to “cut out the middle man” and use micropayments on their own website. Indeed, Winnipeg Free Press, a Canadian newspaper, <a href="http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/columnists/Free-Press-to-roll-out-affordable-user-driven-access-to-news-297814851.html">recently announced plans</a> to use micropayments on their own website, making it the first North American newspaper to do so. Free Press editor Paul Samyn explained the novel decision by <a href="http://www.niemanlab.org/2015/04/the-winnipeg-free-press-is-launching-a-paywall-that-lets-readers-pay-by-the-article/">noting</a> that while newspapers have had some success with paywalls, “their ability to grow paid digital subscriptions appears to have either stalled or only grown marginally.”</p>
<p>The micropayment model has <a href="http://www.mondaynote.com/2014/11/02/the-new-york-times-and-springer-are-wrong-about-blendle/">critics</a> – as do <a href="https://medium.com/geeks-bearing-gifts/paywalls-e401eb73b348">paywalls in general</a>. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, whether any subscription model can convince consumers to pay enough to sustain the journalism that a healthy democracy requires remains an open question. </p>
<p>Since the future of commercially viable journalism hangs in the balance, the stakes are considerable. More research is needed (and more data needs to be made publicly available). And conversations should continue about what the future of digital journalism – including noncommercial models – should look like in a democratic society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40726/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The stakes are high for news outlets to raise revenue. Do paywalls have a future?Alex T. Williams, PhD Student in Communications, University of PennsylvaniaVictor Pickard, Assistant Professor of Communication, University of PennsylvaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.