Newspapers Floundering on Digital Paywalls

American Thinker ^ | August 16, 2013 | Thomas Lifson

[lbryce]

The newspaper industry is flailing about, desperately trying to replace the revenue which disappeared with the arrival of the internet, giving every appearance of being in its death throes. In the latest example of pre-demise convulsions, the San Francisco Chronicle has quietly dropped its paywall, instituted but four months earlier. Andrew Beaujon of Poynter.org writes:

Following a number of reports speculating about the end of the paper's subscription plan, the Chronicle's new publisher and president released a statement that seemed to suggest the company is trying to modify its paywall without giving it up altogether: while all of the paper's news will be appearing at both the SFGate and SFChronicle sites, the two executives hinted that they will be trying to add enough value to the latter to keep people paying for it. According to the statement:

"SFGate will continue to provide readers with a broad spectrum of content as well as all Chronicle reports and columns. The SFChronicle.com site will continue to provide readers with an online version that replicates a newspaper experience and reflects the changes in the news throughout the day. We will continue to increase the unique assets that distinguish SFChronicle.com, including design features, utility and unique offerings to subscribers."

Good luck, guys! My gut tells me that people aren't going to lay out cash money just to have stuff better organized or updated regularly. The news you see in the Chron is somewhat generic, available elsewhere in the Bay Area media.

[lbryce]

Paywalls, the last, desperate hope of a dying industry before rigor mortis sets in has been mostly a failure in stemming the tide in which self-aggrandizing, anachronistic entities of hubris and arrogance have been humbled if not decimated by the emergence of the internet.

It has yet to be seen whether or not such left-wing liberal mouthpieces such as the New York Times, the recently acquired Washington Post "as a hobby" by Jeff Bezos of Amazon fame will live or die on what they pray will be their salvation in staunching the sea of red ink that has relegated the industry to the dustbin of history. The New York Times, in particular, is one in which hubris and arrogance permeates throughout its pages, its sense of authority and self-mportnce being a hallmark of the manner in which it perceives itself as the "Newspaper of Record" as described in Wikipedia.

Wikipedia:New York Times:"Newspaper of Record"

Newspaper of Record
The term is believed to have originated among librarians, who began referring to The New York Times as the "newspaper of record" when, in 1913, it became the first newspaper in the United States to publish an index of the subjects covered in its pages.[4] In recognition of the usage, The Times held an essay contest in 1927 in which entrants had to demonstrate "The Value of The New York Times Index and Files as a Newspaper of Record".[5] Over time, historians began to rely on The Times and similar titles as an archival chronicle of past events and a gauge of societal opinions at the time of printing.[4]

[Buckeye McFrog]

These newspapers and flounder belong together...

[stars & stripes forever]

Their only hope is to write factual conservative articles.

[ClearCase_guy]

To this day, there are still some companies manufacturing Buggy Whips -- and I understand that those comapnies can be quite successful. But, you see, there are very few of them. Not really enough demand to support an entire Buggy Whip Industry.

Newspapers may always exist. I imagine the USA could support 1 or 2 of them.

[Obadiah]

Oh sure, I’m going to pay for yet more chances for the corrupt MSM to tell me what a horrible, racist, bigot I am. I am going to PAY them to tell me how heroic and great guys like Barney Frank, or whomever, are.

Yeah, sure, and I go out and intentionally buy sour milk every week too!

[Paladin2]

NYT, now the newspaper of fishwrap.

[La Lydia]

Several of the newspapers I occasionally peruse are using this company called “Press+” to manage their digital access. It is a dysfunctional mess and I am sure is destroying what is left of their readerships.

[lbryce]

Clever.

[Clay Moore]

We’re all shocked! ping

[Bob]

Their only hope is to write factual conservative articles.

They'd be much better off just writing factual articles, not necessarily conservative ones. Leaving out their typical leftist slant would be sufficient for me.

[Steve_Seattle]

A couple of months ago the Seattle Times instituted a paywall for full access to its Internet site. You are still allowed a limited number of "hits" per month, but you max out pretty quickly. I've resisted the temptation to subscribe, and I will not do so until the day comes when the Times begins to show a modicum of respect for people with my beliefs and values. I do not expect that day to come.

There was an interesting conversation on National Review Online about the recent sale of the Washington Post, and one of the participants made the comment that when journalists began to view themselves as "professionals" rather than as trades people (the traditional understanding), they became arrogant and developed a contempt for their audience. This, in addition to competition from the Internet, is a factor in their recent troubles. Why should I subscribe to the Seattle Times if its message to me is "screw you"?

[AtlasStalled]

In other words: people won’t pay to read crap

[Steve_Seattle]

"They'd be much better off just writing factual articles, not necessarily conservative ones. Leaving out their typical leftist slant would be sufficient for me."

I agree. I do not want my local paper to become something like Fox News, but I can not tolerate its current resemblance to MSNBC or NPR.

[Steve_Seattle]

"Oh sure, I’m going to pay for yet more chances for the corrupt MSM to tell me what a horrible, racist, bigot I am. I am going to PAY them to tell me how heroic and great guys like Barney Frank, or whomever, are."

For MANY years I subscribed to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, but about 15 years ago I realized that I no longer wanted "screw you, conservative" to be the first message of the day when I brought the newspaper in from the front porch, so I cancelled my subscription. The Post-Intelligencer ceased print publication about five years ago, and now survives as a limited, on-line-only shell of its former self.

[RoosterRedux]

Digital paywalls don't work because aren't going to pay from something they can easily get elsewhere for free.

Newspaper need a different business model altogether and that is certainly what Jeff Bezos has in mind for WaPo.

[catnipman]

Paywall up, paywall down. Paywall up, paywall down. These are just more convulsions of the dying newspaper corpses.

The Internet comet crashed to earth in 1998 and killed the newspaper dinosaurs, who existed solely because they could create monopoly conditions for local advertising. The newspapers were killed by the digital revolution with the formation of craigslist, ebay, and amazon all around 1998, but their death has taken over a decade to register with their pea-sized brains as their mammoth bodies thrashed about.

Going digital ten years too late means that newspapers have merely become little more than a few additional websites competing with a billion existing web sites for limited advertising dollars. And even worse for the dying papers, ad pages no long bring in thousands of dollars per page, but instead bring in thousandths of a cent per page, so there’s no chance whatsoever of digital ad revenues ever equaling newspaper publishing ad revenues.

Digital subscriptions, also known as paywalls, never had a chance of working either. Most of what’s behind a paywall is freely available elsewhere, and paywalls render any ads behind the paywalls valueless, meaning no one in their right mind is going to pay for an ad behind a paywall.

It is true that the loss of news gathering by newspapers is collateral damage from the digital revolution. However, news was never anything more than the hook to get consumers to buy and read the newspaper ads, and for the most part had been turned into little more than leftest propaganda anyway, so the value of the “loss” is highly debatable.

At any rate, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch, since most newspapers have been promoting the overthrow of all that is good and unique about the U.S. for at least 70 years. At least buggy whip makers never tried to destroy the U.S.

[Steve_Seattle]

You have a way with words. The comet/dinosaur imagery is very apt and very amusing.

[Steve_Seattle]

The only flaw in your analysis is that I think people do need news, especially local news, and that free Internet sources and TV news MIGHT not be able to completely fill that gap. And most major cities still have FREE (weekly) newspapers that seem to thrive despite the problems with the large dailies. Of course, these are largely (but not totally) entertainment oriented, and have relatively small staffs.

[pluvmantelo]

Sometimes simply clearing cookies will allow continued access. If that technique fails then using a browser that uses a proxy server is another approach. I do most of my news reading on an android device and the Opera mini browser uses a proxy by default. It handily defeats the L.A. Times attempt to limit the number of times per month one can access the site. There may be desktop browsers that use a proxy server, but I have no info on that.

[S.O.S121.500]

Sweet; sweet the sound of my enemies Death Song.