I have just finished reading the article 'The Year of The Paywall' and it's got me thinking about whether or not newspapers should charge for their content. I think this is an important topic that we should all give some serious thought to, after all newspapers are still one of our primary sources of information about the world.
In today's society it is, in my opinion, clear that news corporations should have their content subscription based. As the internet has evolved, my feeling is that the ads we see impact us less and less. This is without even taking into consideration adblockers that will let you view websites without the ads. For these reasons companies looking to advertise will naturally be less keen to pay for it. For the websites to still be profitable they need to charge for their services.
We have seen internet services like newspapers charge for content here in Sweden. One of the problems with this I think is that they're not charging for the actual news. Instead they have opted to charge for additional articles which I personally feel are more of a novelty. All the content that I desire still remains free.
What I think needs to happen for the newspapers to raise their revenues from subscriptions is for all of the newspapers to start charging money for their content. If only a few were to do this then they would be at a major disadvantage and people would look to other sources.
For this to be successful these organizations need to make sure that the content they are producing is of high enough quality for people to pay money for it. This is more important now than ever before considering the social media competition the traditional media is facing like Twitter and Facebook.
With the convergence of social media and news it is more important than ever to have reliable news organizations that privilege hard hitting journalism over 'infotainment' news that often pops up on our Facebook and Twitter feeds. We need to remember that without journalists taking a critical look at the world, and challenging the actions of powerful companies and institutions, change for the better is less likely to happen.
With globalization and the growing power of large corporations it has never been more important to have objective voices raising awareness of issues important to the many. The demise of quality journalism should not be an issue overlooked because it is only with the dissemination of knowledge that power can be observed, challenged and changed. hopefully in line with society's values. For this to happen, we need people to be willing to pay for their news.
