Future of Journalism

The future of journalism will be stuck behind a paywall. So to read the rest, please sign up to my blog for $5 a month. That’s just a joke but it will soon be the reality. Unfortunately, soon everyone will soon need to pay for a digital subscription for the news and that’s going to leave a lot of people without critical knowledge. The consumers that do pay also might only have one version of a story because people will be less willing to pay for multiple news subscriptions for countering points of view. As more news outlets put their articles behind the paywall, non-subscribers will only get small portions of stories online for free. Advertisements will also get more intrusive and frequent. If news outlets get more of their revenue from subscriptions instead of ads, that could be a sea change in newsrooms as outlets work to provide more news on what their subscribers want.

There is some good news about newspapers making money. A recent story by Neiman Labs, “The Guardian actually makes money now” (https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/05/want-to-see-what-one-digital-future-for-newspapers-looks-like-look-at-the-guardian-which-isnt-losing-money-anymore/) shows a path for profitability for newspapers. It includes “making a majority of your revenue from digital sources, making a majority of your revenue from readers rather than advertising, make a digital subscription product for superfans to buy, and asking for…