Zombie Journalism

Dispatches from the living amongst journalism's walking dead

Tag: subscriptions

Losing writers to Substack isn’t so bad

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On April 28, 2021

In Online Revenue Models

I’m sorry, but this is yet another blog post about Substack. Sort of.

Photo by Martin Adams on Unsplash

Depending on who you ask, Substack and its many imitators are a godsend or the downfall of modern journalism. Really, it’s just a newsletter platform that pays some people money and gives independent writers a way to collect revenue from subscriptions. That’s it. 

There has been a lot of opining (so much!) about how “the media” will survive losing the writers who have left their cushy jobs at NYT, WaPo, CNN, or Vox to go it alone on Substack. 

It’s almost as if this has never happened before. Like back when people left newsrooms to start their own publications. Or to create blogs. Or do TV shows. But I digress. 

Frankly, the loss of these voices isn’t a concern to me. As Will Oremus noted in Slate, many of these departing writers are not primarily known for their hard-hitting reporting anyway. They’re pundits, the sort of column writers that get invited onto cable news panels and podcasts. They’re also primarily white guys of a similar age that I probably couldn’t pick out of a lineup*.

This might be a crazy thought, but what if this is a good thing? I’m sure these folks’ columns masquerading as reporting get good pageviews, or else they wouldn’t have gone independent. But so what? I would bet that every newsroom that has lost some superstar white dude has many more talented writers and interesting personalities in its ranks that could become big stars. 

Maybe if so many media writers and newsrooms leaders weren’t themselves white dudes of a certain age, they could see this opportunity for what it is.

The departure of these bright lights might free up some salary and oxygen for more women, journalists of color, and other underrepresented groups in the newsroom to get their shot at the spotlight. 

That would require our biggest and most prominent news organizations to think creatively about assessing the skills and ambitions of their current staff and considering who they need to recruit. It can be done!

As for those underrepresented newsroom voices – get your newsletter and column pitches together now! It’s only a matter of time before the next [young, white male] journalist is tapped to be the next big newsroom star. 

* Many of my friends (and my spouse) are white, male journalists. I can like them and also think they are wildly overrepresented in news, especially in the ranks of management. ✌️

Sunday plan evolves from print-only to print-first

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On March 1, 2010

In Online Revenue Models

I wrote first last week about my employer, The Cincinnati Enquirer, experimenting with a print-only strategy for certain stories to boost Sunday single-copy sales.

Not long afterward, I was in a meeting where we decided on the next course of this ever-evolving experiment – and came up with a conclusion web readers should find a bit more agreeable.

First_in_Print_logo2This past Sunday, the logo and experiment changed from “Print Exclusive” to “Print First”. This week, the six selected Sunday stories were promoted on Cincinnati.Com and held from online publication until today. This was intended to give more value to the printed Sunday edition without keeping the stories unavailable for online and out-of-market readers. This was a solution suggested by many of those who responded to my post last week (more on that later) and very agreeable compromise in our editor meetings on the subject.

While I don’t know how it worked for print sales, it seemed to work well for us on the online side at Cincinnati.Com. Mondays are notoriously slow for news with art, so these embargoed Sunday blowouts have been there for us to use today in prominent spots – and a few of them (like this piece on Larry Flynt’s family lawsuit – like that  isn’t just primed for the web) are doing very well in terms of page views.

We’ve known for awhile that our online readers and print readers are not usually the same – not just here, but at all newspaper sites. A strategy like this seems to reflect that as well, since the stories we held from online yesterday are today enjoying new life and a burst of traffic (not to mention placement in search engines and linkage from all over).

Simply put, we shouldn’t try to sell our web readers the print newspaper – if anything, we should try to sell them news they want in the format they want it. Newspapers can’t afford to devalue the web audience if they want to succeed in the long run, hence why everyone’s trying to find a way to make money online in the form of paywalls, freemium content, micropayments and whatever else is coming down the pike.

While I’m personally not crazy about some of those plans, I think anything is better than entirely withholding the news from the web audience. Judging from the responses I got last week and what we discussed internally at the Enquirer, I’m not the only one.

Here are some of the responses I was sent via email  and social media to the “Print Exclusive” experiment:

– I purchase the paper every Sunday and truly enjoyed [last week’s] piece on homeless teens….  I was however disappointed when I could not find the article online, as I wanted to email it/tweet it. I see the point in having print-exclusives to drive paper sales, but I am wondering if it might not be possible to post the articles online once the print editions are no longer available?

– If the Enquirer sold the Sunday sports section as a standalone print product, I’d buy that, but that’s all I’d want. Mostly I’m a web reader.

– I can see not putting the content online before print, but don’t make it unavailable to me online. Even if I have to pay for it or buy a day pass to your e-edition, at least I have a way to read it if I want.

– You should be able to “buy” daily copies of the paper online in the e-edition. Maybe even just make the Sunday e-edition a subscription option. I’d buy it.

– This seems kinda bass ackwards to me. You should be increasing your online presence rather than reducing it. I think the proposed pay model for the New York Times is perfectly agreeable and I have no problem subscribing to that.

What about you? What do you think of this latest plan?

Times chose quick bucks over a lasting audience

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On January 21, 2010

In Industry News & Notes, Online Revenue Models

If you read here yesterday – or just about any other journalism blog online – you know about the New York Times‘ plan to charge for online content beginning in 2011.

The reaction in my own newsroom has largely been one of relief. Most of the journalists I work with are less experienced with the expectations of the online audience and are, understandably, very protective of their work. Many have been arguing with me for years that we shouldn’t just “give our content away for free online” (even though we’ve essentially been giving it away for free in print since the beginning of newspapers).

It’s a short-sighted philosophy that is borne out of the naivete from years or working in that bygone era where news was a monopoly. It isn’t anymore – not even close – and online readers care less than they ever did about who writes the news they read (or why).

Felix Salmon at Reuters really underscores the glaring truth behind the NYT’s charge plan, saying it is an act of desperation from a company that still believes it is big enough to matter more to readers than a website that doesn’t charge for content.

“This is, of course, exactly the approach that the NYT’s management would take if it felt that it was managing a company in terminal decline, and wanted to squeeze as many dollars out of it as possible before it dies. Successful media companies go after audience first, and then watch revenues follow; failing ones alienate their audience in an attempt to maximize short-term revenues.”

The fact of the matter is that any sort of pay wall will inevitably alienate a core of online readers, particularly those without any real sense of loyalty to a particular news source. Worse yet, this audience is not only a primary audience we hope to keep around in the future, it is also a very, very valuable audience to advertisers.

Advertising Age noted yesterday that the heaviest Times Online users, those reportedly about to start getting charged, are the last ones any site wants to drive away because they are attractive to advertisers. The most frequent online readers are also the ones we as websites know the most about thanks to our site analytics.

Unlike our print readership, we can know without doubt where our online readers come from, what technology they use, what time of day they are online and, most importantly, we can piece together what they like based on the story sets they choose.

In this plan, the Times is giving up on one potential source of long-term revenue and a chance to build audience for a quick make-a-buck scheme that could be very detrimental in the long run.

And another thing to consider is just how many subscribers does the Times think it will gain in the online only space? Last week, Alan Mutter analyzed a survey that compared the number of  print subscribers who subscribe online at news sites with pay walls or e-editions. It turns out only 2.4% of those who are loyal enough to buy a paper are also willing to pay to read exclusive content online.

While I’m not sure this is a very fair indication of overall online subscription adoption, it is alarming to see that print subscribers, who we likely assumed would be the first to pay online, are not so eager to shell out money for online content. Once the print audience declines to a sliver, what does this say for the future of the subscription?

Who’s trying to save journalism this week

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On September 24, 2009

In Industry News & Notes, Recommended Links

Following the News 2.0 Forum a couple of weeks ago and my (awesome) vacation, it suddenly seems like everyone is talking about the “future of journalism” right now, particularly when it comes to how to fund it.

Under the familiar topic of paid online news, the Guardian reported this week on a poll that found web users prefer subscriptions to micropayments. Of course, that’s all entirely based on the premise that they’d have to be paying for news in the first place, as there was no option for “I will do what I can to not pay anything”.

Anyway, the finding isn’t entirely surprising. Most people don’t understand micropayments in the first place and, frankly, it makes sense to those who may be more familiar with print subscriptions to buy all-access for one fee than buying content one piece at a time.

Meanwhile, back in the US, Jack Shafer at Slate made the case as to why Obama should stay out of the fight to save American newspapers. The real issue at hand is a bill from Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin that would allow newspapers to reorganize themselves as non-profits.

The reasons this could be a very bad idea are many. For starters, it seeks to only help newspapers and not any other media. Two, it doesn’t actually fix the primary problem, anyway. If newspapers were to suddenly become non-profits, it wouldn’t change the fact that they lose money. And three, it seeks to preserve a status quo in an industry that needs to be anything but.

A far better solution (IMHO) gets a spotlight from David Westphal at the Online Journalism Review: Creating revenue by selling our best skills as journalists.  Talk surfaced at a recent IRE conference about the prospect of selling journalists’ research skills on a “for hire” basis. This sort of thing has been done for years by the Economist and a few operations (like GlobalPost) have begun trying it out as well.

It’s a simple idea that could really have some legs if done correctly. It would take one of the most innate and specialized skills of investigative journalists – researching and reporting – and sell it to clients who want deep background on, say, a local company, an incident or a piece of legislation.  We all know that anyone can write a story these days, but it takes a certain kind of skill set to tenaciously chase a story in the way an investigative reporter might – so why not market that?

Seeking your input on business models

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On September 3, 2009

In Online Revenue Models, Surviving

I’ve mentioned before that I am pulling together an event 9/9 at the Enquirer Media offices, the News 2.0 Forum, where people inside and outside our news organization will give five minute presentations on their perception of “the future of news”. We’ve got a great lineup ready from quite  few different perspectives (I’ll post it when it’s finalized).

Anyway, I’m preparing my own five minute presentation on possible future business models. For some reason, I was crazy enough to volunteer to set up this event, emcee it and do a presentation (all of this the night before I leave for a long vacation).

Because I know the few (but elite!) readers of this blog are pretty savvy folks, I figured I’d ask you for your input on my presentation.

Here’s the models I’m focusing on:

1. The continuation of an advertising supported model. Using examples like HuffPo, West Seattle Blog, Gawker to show that ad support can work – but you need to be pretty well streamlined to make that happen.

2. The grant-funded model (e.g Pro Publica, Common Language project).

3. The membership/subscription based model.

4. Micropayments of all kinds.

5. Offering other products/services to support news operations.

So what am I missing here? Remember, it’s five minutes, so let’s not get crazy.

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