Live from DPAC4: To pay or not to pay for content
ADOTAS – Sparks were promised and they did fly at the DPAC4 panel “The Ultimate Digital Content Debate: Paid or Free.” In fact, there were times when you wondered if the panelists would start hissing at each other; an episode of “Jerry Springer” looked prime to break out and no bouncers were to be seen.
Steven Brill of Journalism Online LLC came out swinging: “Publishers committed suicide so many years ago when they started giving their product away online.” He said the current environment proves that advertising alone is no way to fund a journalism operation.
He offered a model where users would be asked to subscribe after viewing a certain amount of articles on a publisher; people become devoted to certain content providers and should be willing to contribute to keep on receiving their preferred product.
Mike Linksvayer, vice president of Creative Commons, struck back, arguing that partially paid content sites are not viable and a paid content model is for the most part unproven. Even The Wall Street Journal is opening up more content to nonsubscribers he noted.
However, Brill’s arguments thundered across the meeting hall. “We’ve trained a generation not to pay for journalism,” he cried. He called out content aggregators, labeling Huffington Post a parasite for feeding off real journalism organizations.
A complete subscription model seems more workable on a regional level, Brill suggested, especially with local newspapers providing specialized content for that area. In effect, the lack of supply — i.e., no other resources for local coverage — will bring demand and willingness to pay a fee.
Linksvayer countered that citizen journalists provide these functions, noting the upstart Patch program, and community papers tend to be distributed for free.
“It’s a little elitist to say that journalists are necessary for community coverage when journalists aren’t experts in anything,” he said.
Reader Comments.
Just saw this on a Google Alerts. Whoever Gavin Dunaway is, he was not in the room I was in. No “sparks” flew. No one “hissed.” Nothing “thundered.” No one “cried.” It was a quiet, calm discussion, probably a disappointment to those in the room (who have to be laughing at the comparision with a Jerry Springer episode) and certainly not the event this Tom Wolfe-wanna-be dreams he was at. Guess it just helps make my point about the need for professional journalists.
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