On Wednesday, HuffPost’s parent company, Verizon Media Group, and BuzzFeed both announced plans to lay off hundreds of staff. The news signalled a collision between the dream of an online media boom and the accountants’ harsher reality: questions over the long-term profitability of digital media companies, and, as a result, concerns over the future of online journalism itself.
“What if there is literally no profitable model for digital news? Or none that actually scales and endures without, say, the established readership base and brand of the New York Times?” asked the MSNBC presenter Chris Hayes, summarising a growing fear among media executives that the current model of paying for journalism on the internet is broken.
Or perhaps this should be viewed from the other way around? Why not look at the revenue and think about what can be done with that?
Had a few contacts recently. Emails from people at HuffPo, FastCompany etc. Journos looking to write a story. And they’re using the American methods. Nothing is ever actually just said. It’s always “So and so told us that”. Which is time consuming and expensive, you’ve got to go look for the quotes which build the story the way you want it. Takes days to stitch together something this way. It’s also the American way of journalism.
The English has always been a bit more direct. And perhaps online needs it to be even simpler?
Another way to put this is if online revenues won’t support the American newsroom techniques why not go look for the techniques that will be supported by the revenues?
Entirely agreed I’m not doing it either but someone, somewhere, will.
the current model of paying for journalism on the internet is broken.
the current model of paying for far-Left political activism on the internet is broken.
You can get the same junk on Twitter for free.
I disagree.
If you are careful in who you follow twitter gives you both what are the hot stories in the press, and also decent source material / professional takes on it. As the FT/economist have shifted away from journalism towards preaching I have pretty much ditched them.
I agree. The spade sellers did well and some prospectors, but you have to expect many will fail until eventually an efficient way is stumbled upon and that will take over.
Tim Pool claims to be getting 16m YouTube views a month.
I haven’t noticed that the NYT is any different than the Guardian. Mostly opinion pieces and we all know what Dirty Harry thinks about opinions.
The Guardian is hanging on and remaining read if not relevant by being outrageous. This is a tactic borrowed from Trump and successfully deployed elsewhere in the world. The editor’s maxim today is if it triggers, it leads.
‘What if there is literally no profitable model for digital news?’
Perhaps Huffingpuffington Post and Buzzfeed could try producing actual fvcking NEWS.
The problem with digital news is that it just hasn’t been tried by the right people yet.
@ISP001
+1 especially re the FT/Economist – which makes me quite sad, and a bit annoyed.
” And they’re using the American methods. Nothing is ever actually just said. It’s always “So and so told us that”. Which is time consuming and expensive, you’ve got to go look for the quotes which build the story the way you want it. Takes days to stitch together something this way. It’s also the American way of journalism.”
Really? Tell that to Nick Sandmann and the other boys from Covington School.
Agreed, Recusant. The Americans quit using the ‘American methods’ in 1996.
The media loved Bill Clinton’s “No attack ever fed a hungry child.” They realized, perhaps not consciously, that junk is easier than journalism.
No person is poorer for not being on Twitter (or Facebook), you can gather all the news you need elsewhere without trawling through utter dross.
Was there not a thing a while back that the HuffPosts founders cashed in and sold the business to verizon?
And that the journalists that had been providing the stories for free/cheap were mighty annoyed because they thought the deal was that they would be given something when this happened, but received nothing?
I wonder if said journalists stopped providing cheap content making the paper less profitable?
Doesn’t seem to be affecting The Drudge Report or The Washington Free Beacon.
What? Oh I see; carry on.
Drudge is just a link aggregator. The Free Beacon is Phil Anschutz’s ideological vanity project, I seriously doubt it’s more profitable than HuffPo or Buzzfeed.
“As the FT/economist have shifted away from journalism towards preaching I have pretty much ditched them.”
I’m running down my digital subscription so still download and listen in the gym/car. This week’s Charlemagne is another nail in their coffin.
After spending the whole column telling us how different Brits and Europeans are it concludes:
Only those with Brexit derangement syndrome could come to that conclusion.
Sorry, but the approach of “see what the revenue is and adjust service to fit” strikes me as back-asswards, since it implies a race to the bottom.
A few points;
1. The definition of news. Dog bites man vs. Man bites dog stuff.
2. The assumption that revenue is entirely controlled by the existing online platforms.
3. The uninformed vs. mis-informed thing.
I wouldn’t really want to start by attempting to further bodge the model adopted by the dead-tree providers nearly twenty years ago, as it’s already known that it’s failing.
People don’t want to pay for lying marxist shite and are not doing so.
Ergo–if you want to get paid produce something other than marxist shite and people might well pay for it.
I don’t claim to be especially perceptive but, hells bells, I concluded 20 years ago that the FT and Economist had become shills for proggies and tranzies. It is quite depressing to reflect on the implications of this astute, often learned and mostly woke commentariat, only now, now for crying out loud, considering the vague possibility of cancelling the subscription.
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. There remains some who try to breathe life into the Tory corpse or to excuse their continued voting for it.
I took my subscription out 5 years ago as a I though good deal.
People don’t want to pay for lying marxist shite and are not doing so.
Even the Marxists don’t want to pay for it, but they never have, of course.
I concluded 20 years ago that the FT and Economist had become shills for proggies and tranzies.
Yes, the question was can an organisation remain economically liberal (classical sense) while travelling full speed Leftwards on social issues: the answer is no; culture will always triumph over economics in times of plenty.
HuffPo, like Twitter, has always been about providing service to those they find acceptable ideologically. That’s less than half of the market. And they are surprised they can’t make money.
I suspect there still is money to made in journalism, but in strident political advocacy? Not so much.
Which makes me wonder . . . is the adblocker on my PC the moral equivalent of fast forwarding my DVR through the ads?
Do the advertisers – who pay for all this happy horseshit – know that people don’t actually watch/look at their ads? Without something to pique my interest, say, a pretty girl, I don’t watch any of it.
Your adblocker means that the ads are never shown. So never paid for either.
Let’s hope each and every one of them was told to “Learn to code” in a condescending manner by a twenty-five year old.
Your adblocker means that the ads are never shown. So never paid for either.
That’s why on the rare occasion I visit the Telegraph I get a page pop up begging me to drop the Ad blocker.
It’s very hard to sell content unless you’re exceptionally good at it. The cost of the barriers to entry in making and distribution text, video or music has meant that we’ve gone from industries where a few people got the breaks and made a lot of money to an industry where everyone can sell, and everyone gets a small chunk.
60 years ago, photographers made very good money. Cameras were expensive, film was expensive, you generally had to know how to manage f-stops and shutter speeds, do your own processing and printing. You can buy a £350 dSLR and start selling photos. Put in the name of a market town into Alamy and see how many photos are available for news agencies.
Rob,
“Let’s hope each and every one of them was told to “Learn to code” in a condescending manner by a twenty-five year old.”
And then what they’ll do is try and build a pointless woke app or game.
I think we’ve lived through an era where we went from “don’t put your daughter on the stage” to Billy Elliott. Not just in media but in school and general society. Perhaps at one time we were a bit too much “get yourself down t’mill and forget all that rubbish” , but it’s all “follow your dreams” now.
My local technical college runs courses in music recording. The guy who runs it really knows his stuff. But really, we have mountains of record producers. I know a crime writer who is about to run a Phd course in crime writing. She’s an excellent crime writer. She’ll do the job very well. But do we need more crime writers?
‘Your adblocker means that the ads are never shown. So never paid for either.’
Oh. I hope I’m still welcome here.
“Still?” they ask.
I do provide content, if not revenue.