How To Split An Atom

New York Times is getting out of the subscription game, and rumor has it that so is the Wall Street Journal. The reasons for tearing down the pay per read wall are legion, but when all the smoke clears, there is still a question that needs to be explored — what, if anything, are you willing to pay for.

Mainstream Media

There is a huge problem with all digital media, it is so easy to “borrow”. Whether you are talking about the latest blockbuster movie, the newest hit album, or your favorite bloggers body of work; if you don’t have a brick and mortar product, convincing anyone to pay to use it is a bad value proposition.

So, what is a mainstream media company to do?

In this case, sell the sizzle not the steak. The news itself has no value, even editorial opinion can’t really be packaged and sold. What you need to recognize is that on the web, you are operating in a service economy. To see how mainstream media can monetize this, lets take a look at the difference between your average blog and the New York Times.

You average blog sources its information either from industry contacts, or (follow me now) mainstream media sources. Your average blog is run by one person or a small group of people, usually with limited journalistic chops. Finally, your average blogger is ever vigilant for an opportunity to be “that guy” who finds a scoop before anyone else.

Why don’t the big guys exploit the fact that they have an army of reporters with more stories than they know what to do with. They could package pre-releases and provide them to anyone who wants them as a subscription service.

There are plenty of writers out there that would pay good money for a story a day before it hits the presses. Since the real “feature” stories that are their bread and butter wouldn’t be included, this wouldn’t likely cut into their terrestrial reader base. Associated Press and PR Newswire has been doing this for years. All concerns about diluting the “scoop” market aside, this would bring mainstream media more in line with what I feel is their place in the digital news economy — information commodity brokers.

Tiered News

The concept is that at the top of the news heap are services like the Associated Press, which aggregate and syndicate content and pass it along to the second tier, mainstream media. Mainstream media distills and editorialize this content which is then passed down the line to the blogosphere. We, in turn, comments on and expounds upon this news and present it to readers.

Instead of thinking themselves as the end of the line, a progressive news service should see themselves as another link in the chain of information dissemination. With this new model under their belt, opening up their news gathering resources to smaller journalistic entities might not seem as crazy.

Web 2.0 Roundup

Will selling “scoops” save online newspapers? No. Would it provide a nice residual to hold them over during cyclical advertising downturns? Probably. What mainstream media must learn is that the digital environment is such that your average consumer will never subscribe just to see content. Unlike a real newspaper, none of the perks (like distribution and packaging) are there to spur people to convert.

Like every other old industry from GE onwards, what terrestrial newspapers need to realize is that the future is in diversification. They no longer hold the monopoly on the news delivery market, it’s time to start playing on the strengths that they still have.

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