Via the indispensable Mark Potts, Bill Wyman has offered up a hefty slice of on-the-money analysis about why the newspaper industry is going belly up in Splice Today. Crucially, it answers a lot of the holier-than-thou criticism of internet content and punditry by purist journalists and academics. I like it when Wyman hits out at […]
How has the past decade of technological and business change in print publishing changed freelance patterns of work? A lot, as it turns out. Here, for the sake of example, is a comparison between a representative week’s work for me as a freelance sub/writer in around 1999 and the work I have been doing this […]
Here’s a nice piece from Scooping The News that outlines clearly why they think charging for online news content is a bit of a non-starter. It covers the main bases: The supply of web content is now vast Charging hasn’t worked for anyone else yet. Newspapers don’t have compelling enough content to compete There will […]
Even casual readers of Freelance Unbound will know I’m pretty sceptical that the news media will find it easy to make a go of charging for online access to plain old news. But, you know, I could be wrong. A case in point is the Boston Globe, which has announced it will definitely, absolutely, start doing […]
There’s a good piece on PaidContent.org about Rupert Murdoch’s plans to charge for News International’s web content. Part of this will be to charge for access to The Sun and the News of the World online. How will he manage to do this? “Just make our content better and differentiate it from other people. And I […]
I’ve just read Build the Wall – a gently impassioned, 4,250 word essay in the Columbia Journalism Review by David Simon – that declares the only future for journalism is if newspapers – all newspapers, everywhere (in the US anyway) – start charging for their online content. It’s billed as “One man’s bold blueprint”. It’s actually […]
For everyone who can’t get through the day without new and shiny material to look at, be reassured that there’s a lot going on here, but most of it is in the comments section, where readers and I are engaged in the savage cut and thrust of debate on matters ranging from why paid journalism […]
Some interesting points have been made in the comments to my post about Why Paid Journalism is in Trouble. Crucially, they falls into the trap of conflating the interests of readers with those of journalists. It’s worth looking at this in a bit more depth. (Quite a bit more depth actually. Sorry if I ramble […]
As they say, prediction is hard – especially about the future. Many years ago – sometime in the mid-to-late 1990s – I started to take note of the technological change revamping the journalism business, and I started to make some fanciful predictions about the direction it would take. Anyone who takes an interest in futurology […]
Very interesting piece by Stan Schroeder on Mashable on the different implications of free online content. “Free” is not just about price – it’s also about simplicity and ease of use. Some content will be difficult to charge anything for. Unfortunately for journalists, it’s news. Forcing charges down people’s throats is a bad way to […]