Fri, 17 Jul 2009 12:00a.m.
In the highly entertaining merry-go-round that is making money out of websites, paying for content is making a bit of a comeback.
The National Business Review (NBR) is one of an increasing string of international news organisations who are confident of the quality of their journalism and believe that people are prepared to pay for it.
I think they have a good chance of success. As a specialist news publication they have information of a high quality that is invaluable to people doing business in New Zealand.
Traffic to their site would not be large enough to create huge amounts of money from advertising revenue and they are probably confident that many people who do use their site will be prepared to pay the quite reasonable $89 for six months of membership.
This is a bargain price when compared to the Australian Financial Review, which charges A$1308 for a year’s online subscription, but is more comparable to the Economist, which is cheaper than the NBR at US$79 for a year.
The proud independent, published by Barry Colman, is aware that it needs to provide quality coverage not available anywhere else for their model to succeed.
“We know that we will have to provide a consistently superior news service and I believe you will quickly see we are up to the challenge,” Mr Colman said in a press release.
It is also important to remember that they are only locking down 20 percent of their content – they will still be able to attract visitors who are only interested in a free ride.
One aspect of their strategy grates, though.
In launching their paid content concept, Mr Colman has taken a sideswipe at what he calls “amateur, untrained, unqualified bloggers”.
Despite this being an obvious PR move in trying to promote NBR’s content over other NZ business sites that provide a similar service for free – it misses the point of blogging and discourse on the internet.
“Most of these ‘citizen journalists’ don’t have access to decision-makers and are infamous for their biased and inaccurate reporting on almost any subject under the sun – while invariably criticising news coverage, whose original material they depend on to base their diatribes,” says Mr Colman.
But Mr Colman needs to draw a line in the sand between reporting and commenting.
His comments suggest a world where the only people who deserve a say are those within a media elite. Imagine how dull a sports game would be if the only person who was allowed to comment was the referee.
Bloggers that report unreliably are indeed a scourge on the internet’s good name, but bloggers who comment, or add a new angle to an ongoing debate are a good thing.
They are inevitably biased to some degree, but so is any person who holds an opinion on a subject.
Journalists fight this dilemma every day, pushing aside personal feelings towards a subject to report objectively, but they should not shy away from considered opinion when they are outside this role; it is inhuman to do so.
News organisations should maintain balance and fairness by ensuring their newsrooms hold as diverse a range of opinions as possible.
The NBR should be pleased that there are people in cyberspace who are sufficiently enthused about business to be discussing and arguing the toss over it.
These are exactly the sort of people the NBR would do well to target – rather than alienate.
***
In Mr Colman’s favour he does make a good point about journalists being laid off by news organisations.
“Laying off journalists as a cost-cutting tactic is a route to oblivion for newspapers.”
Couldn’t agree more – poor quality journalism only leads to lower profits.