Do Web readers value journalism enough to pay? (Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)

Los Angeles Times ^ | January 1, 2010 | James Rainey

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As the media landscape continues to skew to online from print, more news outlets may feel financial pressure to test just how much readers care about professional credentials.

Looking into the media furor over swine flu last spring, I interviewed a UCLA epidemiologist, who told me it was best to assume "a posture of humility" in trying to assess how deadly the H1N1 virus would be.

"This is a virus we haven't seen before," said Dr. Robert Kim-Farley. "We don't really know what will happen."

I've thought often in recent months about those words, which just as easily might be applied to viral change infecting the news media.

We don't know exactly what's coming in the news business, only that change is coming fast. But if 2010 is anything like the year just ending, expect to see: more opinion, more partisanship, more (amateur) voices in the mix, more niche websites, less original reporting, less separation between news and advertising, and fewer paid journalists on the beat.

Information in the broadband, iPhone world will be more accessible, more quickly. Many consumers will find outlets that slice and dice information by subject, ideology and tone in ways they find pleasing. But with the citizenry increasingly fitted into a series of silos, the challenge of coming together for a civil, coherent conversation will grow greater.

The technological disruption shaking professional media, though, has empowered a new information army.

When mainstream reporters were driven out of Iran around last June's presidential election, everyday citizens took up the story, using cellphones and Twitter accounts to beam tales of voter fraud to the world. YouTube images of Neda Agha-Soltan, 26, bleeding to death on the streets of Tehran, made it hard for us to turn away from brutality and repression.

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ping

[RJL]

Do Web readers value journalism enough to pay?

Show us some honest journalism and we will let you know.

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http://www.buzzmachine.com/
Surrendering advertising … killing bundling

http://www.newspaperdeathwatch.com/our-most-memorable-stories-of-2009.html
Our Most Memorable Stories of 2009

[abb]

Rainey can whine with the best of them. “We are OWED!!!”

[Brugmansian]

Only reason I read the LA Times, the NY Times and similar publications is to see what the official Democratic position is on something. If they go away, I’ll be forced to get it from Gibbs, Obama, Pelosi or Reid.

[kittycatonline.com]

Ain’t that the irony? Liberal Media panders to Liberals, and liberals respond in kind by not purchasing any product. The Liberal Solution? Make the government pay!

Say, how come liberals don’t support their own?

[vetvetdoug]

At this point in history I would not give a journalist the sweat off my left testicle. The so called professional journalists in the US are biased and write with an agenda that applauds liberalism and vilifies the middle and the right. Do I value journalism enough to pay? No because journalists that write for today's papers are liars.

[Billthedrill]

Maybe we do, but if I had to pay for journalism my money would be headed to British journalists, not American partisan political operators. The domestic media still appear clueless as to the extent to which their credibility died in the last Presidential election.

So why shouldn't I support, say, the NY Times? Because its staff hates me and holds me in contempt, that's why, and they don't even try to hide the fact. Why on earth would I pay someone for that?

[Gondring]

Show us some honest journalism and we will let you know.

Big talk, not backed up with facts.

Look at how conservative papers are closing faster than liberal ones. Look at how the Bulletin has fared. ?Are things great in Boston now? Look at the low quality of amateur reporting. Amateur reporting said that Rush Limbaugh was dead and that photos of his corpse were being bought. HA! A press conference from a walking, talking corpse today!

It makes a convenient meme, but it's not true that a liberal slant is what is killing newspapers...American ambivalence toward in-depth reporting is a large part of it. But go on with the Dan-Rather-style fake-but-accurate belief if tyou want.

[Reily]

No

[Ouderkirk]

we might if what you were actually doing was journalism.

Since it is not even close to journalism the answer is NO.

[Gondring]

A professional journalist wouldn’t care about your genital perspiration, but you’re welcome to tell everyone about it on your blog. I’m sure you’ll get readers.

[Gondring]

Exactly. Just going conservative doesn’t do it.

[LostInBayport]

Say, how come liberals don’t support their own?

Many of the liberals I know are very, very cheap when it comes to anyone but themselves. They will spend big bucks for their own toys, but when it comes to $10 toward a collection for someone they associate with, they just don't have the money that day. But they will express a wish that the person will be eligible for some state benefits.

So they won't gather together and buy extra copies of their favorite leftist ragsheets, but will "speak out" in favor of government subsidy. That's someone else's money, after all, right?

[Citizen Tom Paine]

Most of the information (?) in US papers these days is not worth paying for. It is on the internet the day before. The newspapers are now written by persons with an agenda. In addition the rarely know what they write about (unfortunately)

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For all these years, “journalism” - whatever that is - have thought their practitioners got paid for what they wrote/spoke.

Wrong.

The only value they ever had was the monopoly on distribution of content.

And that’s all gone.

[Dick Bachert]

PAY TO BE PROPAGANDIZED?

I DON’T THINK SO!!!!

[relictele]

Remember all the hype about the Dixie Chicks and their record sales after ‘George-gate’?

Once liberal outrage died down they couldn’t be bothered to keep buying.

[Rocky]

There’s a long list of liberal rags that ain’t gonna make it if their business model is charging on the internet.