Newspapers are dying – you probably know that by now. Online news is their hope, but there’s no business model (yet). We can be sure of thing though: at some point, somebody has to pay for quality news. It doesn’t really matter those who are paying are readers or advertisers. What matters, is that quality newspapers can show their audience that their news is worth paying for.
Every expert journalist is a rock star. Just like Ezra Koenig from Vampire Weekend. Photo: Anne Helmond
When The Times announced that they’d start charging for online news, its editor indicated the costs of quality journalism. He said it had cost the Times €1.6m ($2.4m) to run a Baghdad bureau for the duration of the Iraq war and €11,000 ($16,363.33) to send a correspondent to report on violence in northern Sri Lanka.
Whether it’s dumb idea of The Times or not, the editor got one thing right. He showed people how much quality journalism costs. It’s not free, like many people seem to think. No: training, paying, and facilitating expert journalists is incredibly expensive. It costs years of investigating till you can give good analyses of conflicts in the Middle East.
The story you read about China’s economy in the free daily isn’t of the same quality as the one you read in a quality newspaper. Why? Because the economy editor of the quality newspaper is one of the best in his country. He didn’t just copy/pasted a Reuters report, he also did his own research. He asked the China correspondent for more insight. And he discussed it with his fellow writers.
But somehow, quality newspapers fail to show the audience that advantage. There used to be a time when just the name of the newspaper was enough. ,,Oh, it’s in the New York Times? Well, it must be true then.” In this new media age, the role of the brand has become considerably smaller. ,,It’s just another news website.”
So what should newspapers do? Well, how about a spotlight on the expert editors? Show a picture, mention the experience of the writer in a short biography, make it personal. Show the audience how concerned the journalist really is with the subject. Let him build a reputation in his field. Better yet, make him the face of the field. They’re the rock stars of the news company.
The New York Times is on the right track. On their Twitter Lists site, the newspaper features some of its expert editors:
Featured editors of The New York Times on Twitter
Have a look at the account of Brian Stelter for example. He’s a digital media editor. You can see what kind of sources he tracks, a few insights in his personal life and of course links to stories he wrote. Over 14,000 people follow him. They know he’s an expert. They trust him. And when he writes a bloody good story, they might even pay to read his stuff.
So, dear newspapers, show the audience how great your journalists really are. Treat them like rock stars. Prove to your readers – every single time – why you are a source for quality journalism. And then, when a business model for online news emerges, your readers will be a lot more willing to pay for your trustworthy and thorough reporting.
Again e great story! Big up. I’m glad i’ve discovered this blog. Keep it coming
Thanks Jonas!
This one of those ideas that fits into several trends and applicable at newsmedia right away. Newspapers have been doing this for years by giving their best reporters a column. The main reason why a reporter gets a column is exactly what EJ’s article is about: because these reporters give the paper a face. They should expand this idea, like The New York Times is doing, on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, with blogs, video’s – whatever you can think of – and in the newspaper too.
By the way, you use NYT as an example, but NRC Handelsblad did and is doing a great job too with Maarten Schinkel explaining the credit crunch on video.
Exactly! I wonder what stopping them. Why not put a byline with every article, saying what the expertise of the author is: ,,thirty years of experience with…”. And of course, links to the profiles you mentioned.
Tradition is stopping them. For years those bylines have been placed with opinion articles. In a journalists mind such bylines match with opinion content, not with ‘objective’ news content. Since not just pure news, but also analysis counts as news content, they won’t come up with such an idea themselves.
In my view they shouldn’t just put those lines under articles and link to profiles on the web because they want to give their medium and journalist a face. Being more transparent is the other important reason why media should do this. Why do I need to be Sherlock Holmes on the web if I want to find out where a journalist studied or worked before this media career? Why can’t I see what a journalist votes? Because the journalist is more objective if I don’t know which politician got his support? (Yes, some journalist really use this as an answer.) That is bullshit. There is nothing what makes a journalist less objective when readers knows what he is voting. Maybe the only downside to more transparency on the background of journalists is that (some) people will have more doubts on objectivity. If that is the case, I’m not sure if that really is bad.
Those bylines probably will cause some people to think journalists aren’t objective. Yet I’m not sure if that’s a problem. These days, everybody has a platform to share his or hers opinion – so it’s getting more important that a person can backup the opinion with experience or expertise. That also goes for analysis. On the web, a journalist from a quality newspaper has to prove his analysis is more valuable than an analysis from just a random person. So yes, show that byline. And yes, work on that new challenge of transparancy.
The latter is a whole different ballgame though and needs a new blog post. Looks like you’ve already written it in your comment Paul :)
nice post. I guess quality (for as far as it can be defined) is turning out to be a niche. With only a few people that actually care enough to make some kind of financial contribution. Since indepth journalism seems to be rather costly i’d say it is probably not fit for the new world order (in the traditional sense). Or maybe just serving a small niche who’ll pay high cost to get ‘professional’ news -and thus furthering the gap between the rich and the not so rich at all. interesting stuff nevertheless
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