Value Archived News

With all the talk about whether the content of newspapers is of a quality the public will be willing to pay for online, it took a search of our paper’s archives recently to remind me that … it is. It’s not necessarily the quality of the individual story (although that’s obviously there), but of the narrative – the archive – that presents an ongoing and valuable commodity.

A mistake of mainstream media has been to ignore and devalue that content.

So if there’s going to be a paywall, maybe it should be for archived content. Not just archived material that you can do a text search on, but a powerful database of related, interwoven “smart” content. At the moment that’s largely unavailable. Allow users to follow the background story, or stories, that give context to the current revision, whether that history is contained in text, image, audio or video content.

As such, it equally applies to any media, or content creator, but this particular post approaches it from the mindset of print.

I had reason to search NewsText, a database of newspaper archives, for the entire history of the Queensland Government’s lobbyist issue, where former government ministers were representing lobbying firms on development projects. During the search I saw clearly the linear progression and connectedness of these articles across months, even years, all presented chronologically. It’s there without tags or related story linking, just a regular text search. Where the authors were different, and in some cases even the publication, the full story still unfolded.

But that linear value is completely lost, both in the newspaper because it isn’t possible, and online when it isn’t utilised. In the newspaper it’s only possible to read each article as a standalone piece, without reference or even knowledge of the wealth of background to the story, or the ongoing work a publication or journalist has devoted to covering that story.

There is the capability to do it online but, in most cases, it’s not being done. People can currently pay for this archival content, with access to historical textual news searches through services like NewsText or Lexis Nexis, but the ability to do that should be provided online from the originating news source.

And why not monetise it?

It’s not like it’s a service offered now and, like academic articles, it could provide a story précis or the context in which the search terms are contained. Some kind of context would help the consumer decide if they want to pay for the entire article, or a sequence of related articles and/or other media content.

If it’s done it shouldn’t be prohibitive to pay for articles. Ease of access is the barrier to overcome, and anything over just a few cents per article would quickly become prohibitively expensive.

You only pay $1.69 AU ($0.99 US) for a song on iTunes, and the whole point of that purchase is to have a product you can use (listen to) again and again. Most people who purchase an article don’t intend to use it over and over again. It’s a one time, single use purchase – generally for reference only and a cheap price should reflect that.

It’s wrong that newspapers and other content creators didn’t start doing this much earlier, or adopt the best practices of somebody who has figured it out. It’s not just another “related articles” plugin, although it includes that, but a seriously robust system that makes the archive useful. Content on news media sites is archived online but, if it wasn’t for Google, it would be nigh on impossible to actually find it.

Everyone has failed at converting content to the web and leveraging the value of their archives. Not just mainstream media. Everybody.

The business model for news is not being saved

The newspaper business model will not be saved with the introduction of paywalls because it is a rejection of the newspaper business model. The current model, entirely based on advertising paying for news, is in the process of being left behind by those who would defend it. It is worrying that users will now be made to pay for news simply because marketing departments are unable to make online advertising work.

The central argument, that users need to pay for news to recoup costs, is an effective raising of the white flag. It’s an admission that, unlike at Google, the media industry is bereft of ideas about how to make online advertising profitable. This extends to the entire industry, all of whom are discussing the merits and timetables of a user-pays model. It just so happens that the News Ltd announcement has thrust that model back into the spotlight.

It reminds me of a rant from David Cross in the outtakes of Arrested Development: “If you can’t market that kind of show and get better ratings, then maybe the problem doesn’t lie here, maybe it lies with marketing”.

In The Australian’s Media and Marketing section on August 10, Mark Day said a paywall would allow newspapers to wrest back control of their business model. How? The way the music industry did, through the “grim enforcement of copyright, uniform action by the music companies and technological advances such as the iTunes micro-payment systems”.  The music industry business model was all but destroyed by online, and rather than bludgeoning users to return to the good old days, they instead bow to the consumer who is willing to pay, but demands to control how, when, and what they pay for.

I disagree completely that “the [music] industry was able to wrest back control of its product”. The music industry was dragged kicking and screaming to its knees, finally relinquishing control to a micro-payment model after consumer outrage put a gun to their head and forced the issue. Introducing a user-pays model isn’t about wresting back control of the news product at all, and you could not pick a worse example of an industry to emulate than the music business.

As an aside, in the music industry consumers have always paid for the product. In the news industry, consumers have never paid for the product, advertising has. The cover price of a newspaper wouldn’t cover the cost of the ink on its pages.

Surprisingly there were a few things I agreed with Mark Day about (despite the column’s title, Bloggers may howl, but cash for content makes sense), like his examples of the three strands of news (happening, manufactured, investigated) and what kind of news people might be willing to pay for. It’s a valid argument, and one industry people are having everywhere, but I do wonder if it’s the sense of inevitibility that is now driving the debate. Now that the introduction of pay-per-view content seems inevitable, everyone is expending cognitive energy on the issue, speculating about how the paywall could work, or what content people are willing to pay for. This, instead of developing a model where advertising still pays for news.

Whether it was the classified “rivers of gold” or advertising on the page, the news industry has for some reason given up on that model working online. I find it inexplicable that nobody in the news industry, across the globe, can figure out how to make advertising work online. Google are just smarter, I guess.

No less than the president of media at Thomson Reuters, Chris Ahearn, recently penned a piece titled, Why I believe in the link economy

Blaming the new leaders or aggregators for disrupting the business of the old leaders, or saber-rattling and threatening to sue are not business strategies – they are personal therapy sessions. Go ask a music executive how well it works.

From Mark Day’s Bloggers may howl, but cash for content makes sense

It is clear a free internet has the power to wreck the economic model of newspapers and news-gathering itself. But the irony is, if that were to happen, the most valuable elements of news — that which is investigated, tested and credible — would disappear because of a lack of funding. Ultimately, that serves no one. Society would be the loser.

We do a disservice to society by making that valuable and important news inaccessible, by telling society that, unless you pay, we will withhold the information that informs your understanding of the machinations of government and the economy.

Related reading:

I first started writing this post over a week ago. The biggest addition since then is the Associated Press plan for content charging online, assessed by Nieman Journalism Lab after they got hold an internal AP document labeled, “AP CONFIDENTIAL — NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION.”

• AP’s Online Strategy » Nieman Journalism Lab
• Why I believe in the link economy (Chris Ahearn, President, Media at Thomson Reuters)
• Will Rupert Murdoch Lead Way for Paid Online Content? – TIME
  ["the pay wall would have destroyed them. Or cured them"]
• Economics for CEO dummies – The Future of Journalism – Open Salon
  ["He made an unfortunately apt comparison between a stale bagel and his newspapers"]
• Pitfalls of the pay wall | Knight Digital Media Center
  ["Before they jump into charging for content, news organizations must bypass the quality journalism argument and answer these five questions instead"]
• Rupert Murdoch’s move to charge for content opens doors for competitors | Media | The Guardian
• Economists on pay-per-view online print news – Terry Flew from QUT

UPDATE:
Last week I tweeted about an article that literally took the words out of my mouth in relation to this blog post.
Five Key Reasons Why Newspapers Are Failing | SPLICETODAY.COM
The first point there illustrates this post:
1. Consumers don’t pay for news. They have never paid for news.

Does the Experience Curve apply to Journalism?

Just read this, linked from Twitter by news.com.au deputy editor Paul Colgan, and had to post it immediately. I’m not saying “experience” is what’s wrong with journalism today, but experience could be what’s wrong with journalism today.

The experience curve was simple and powerful. But it had one troublesome characteristic. Every experience curve was in the end a diminishing returns curve. The more experience accumulated in a specific industry, the longer it took to get the next increment of performance improvement.

Does the Experience Curve Matter Today? The Big Shift – Harvard Business

Just shut up and do your bit as a piece in the small cog, until you have the experience that warrants having an opinion worth listening to. Of course people need experience, but demanding institutionalised experience over any other kind of experience could snuff out the next round of innovation and performance improvement. Maybe that really is what’s killing the news today.

Can institutionalised experience bring about the breath of life, and innovation, that the news media needs? If not, where will that innovation come from? Am I being unfair? Let me know in the comments.

Helen Thomas – ink in her veins

Short video of legendary newswoman Helen Thomas on her return to the White House after recovering from health problems. She is speaking about looking forward to reporting on her eighth US President as a member of the White House press corps.

She’s been in the newspaper industry so long, I think Helen would bleed ink, and will quietly mourn the state of the newspaper industry.

I realized really how dedicated I was to newspapers, which are dying.

via huffington post via crikey

Future of Journalism – Brisbane

I’m not going to go into the Future of Journalism conference last Saturday in any great detail.
There is a post on the Future of Journalism’s Wired Scribe blog with a roundup of several good links to posts by people who were observers and panelists on the day. Interested people can read a roundup there.

You can also read through the live Future of Journalism tweets from various people on the day.

What I’m providing here is just a quick video of a question I asked of news.com.au editor David Higgins about the use of social networking tools for newsgathering.

Video after the jump…

Read more

Digital journalism – attempt first, succeed later

Digital media isn’t about a perfect product straight out of the box, it’s about taking the first step and just having a crack.

You’ve got NO EXCUSE
via News Videographer

I’m extremely impressed with these high school student journalists and the site. If they can do this, you really have NO EXCUSE.

Just have a go. Try your hand, you never know the amazing stories you can tell in new ways. You only learn through experience.

As part of that, there must be a culture within newsrooms that allows the freedom to fail in respect to digital media. You only fix mistakes by making them, and if people are going to learn the new skills they’re going to have to not be afraid to make mistakes.

Encourage your newsroom to change.

The most basic things to encourage self-learning in are video and audio recording. Don’t even worry about editing skills if people have zero experience or are discouraged. Just teach them to hit record. Give the result to someone else to edit/craft, and then give feedback.