The future of news

A chap called Alan Rusbridger was editor of the Guardian for around twenty years, from 1995 to 2015, a long time, as it happens, by today’s standards of corporate governance. And who has now written a book, reference 1 below, in large part about the future of journalism and newspapers in a world with Internet, but hung around his time at the Guardian. A cv which is rounded out by noting that he is both a graduate of English and a talented amateur pianist, as witnessed by another book of his, reference 5. Plus that for a person with an arty background, he has an unusual interest in and talent for matters Internet.

Regular readers of this blog will know that the Guardian, at least until the onslaught of the virus, was a more or less our (week) daily read here at Epsom. However, the rather perverse result of reading this excellent book has been that I have become a subscriber to the Financial Times digital offering – the equivalent Guardian offering seemingly being intended for mobile phones and tablets rather than the laptop that I want to use. And I might say that so far, the Financial Times offering, while expensive, has seemed like value for money.

The central problem which the book documents is that the business model which supported serious newspapers through the 20th century has collapsed. Serious newspapers are expensive, needing a lot of very expensive machinery, capable of turning out hundred of thousands of copies overnight and a lot of moderately expensive journalists – with their attendant expense accounts. All this was paid for, very roughly in equal parts, by the people buying the newspapers, by corporate advertising from large companies and by classified advertising, a lot of it for jobs. The first two of these are in serious decline and the last has all but vanished, swept away by the likes of Craig’s List. The Atlanta version of this last is to be found at reference 6. Serious newspapers also need owners – not the government, more or less by definition – owners who are not greedy, who are content not to interfere and who are content to be doing a public service. Their reward lies in their reputation, in the esteem in which they are held. Good for their vanity, but not for their pockets.

The Metro has solved this conundrum by reducing distribution costs by giving their newspaper away, picking up what corporate advertising they can and more or less doing away with journalists. It turns out that lots of people – even readers of the Guardian – prefer to read a more or less content-free freebie on the way to work – than to pay half the price of a pint of beer for a real newspaper. The circulation of print newspapers has suffered in consequence – with additional damage to their advertising revenues. The Metro also dumps a great deal of waste paper on London’s public transport. I hope they contribute to the cost of dealing with it.

In the long run, it seems likely that print version of mass circulation newspapers will go, with distribution via the Internet being so much better suited to the times. But for the moment, the presses roll on, with the Guardian investing in access to (Tabloid) printing presses at Trinity Mirror as recently at 2018 – more or less writing off £80m worth of (Berliner) printing presses, not much more than ten years old.

Rusbridger writes a good story around all of this, brought to thriller pitch when he writes about some of the potentially ruinous law suits that the Guardian has been involved in, for example the suits brought by Jonathan Aitken (1997) and Rupert Murdoch (2009). On these two, the Guardian’s nerve held and they won. While in the case of a suit brought by Tesco in 2008 over allegations of tax evasion, they admitted error and settled out of court – after both sides had spent a great deal on money on fancy lawyers. Although one should add that, although the Guardian may have made a mistake, the fact remains that Tesco’s – along with many other big companies – sees fit to hide many of its affairs in a complicated maze of off-shore companies, mazes of a sort which are often constructed with not paying tax in mind. He also points to the unhealthy influence that very rich people and very big companies have on the affairs of newspapers. Companies which pay to run lots of big advertisements usually take a dim view of negative coverage, of the hand that feeds being bitten – while newspapers might find it hard to do without those advertisements.

Rusbridger makes a strong case for a responsible press; it is not enough to trust governments, and certainly not enough to trust the likes of Murdoch and his family or the Barclay twins – with these last being the current owners of the Daily Telegraph, once a respectable if right wing paper. And I share his view that there is a role for newspapers and journalists in the world of Google, Facebook, Twitter and the thousands of other websites offering free news of a sort in return for the consumption of advertisements. I want there to be people out there who cook up a thoughtful and considered digest of what is happening out in the world. I want a source I can trust, without having to wade through all the rubbish and worse that pervades the social media. Preferably without the irritating intrusion of a lot of advertisements. But while crowd-sourcing can tap a lot of expertise for free, and Rusbridger reports on various ventures of this sort, finding that expertise and working it up with other more traditionally sourced material into a digest that I can get at, is not free. That is what journalists are for and journalists need to be fed, watered, facilitated and otherwise managed. Professional journalists who have some collective regard for the truth, louche life styles notwithstanding. They are not a free good.

So are there enough people like me out there who are prepared to contribute?

Part of the answer seems to be running first class websites with some kind of paywall – with the Guardian website at reference 4 being a good example, albeit without a paywall, just invitations to pay. A metered paywall seems to be a popular model, whereby you get so much for free, but for regular or extensive use you have to pay. With part of being first class being a lot more dynamic, open and interactive than a once-a-day print newspaper could ever be. It can also be a lot bigger: an online newspaper these days is more or less unlimited in size in itself and a lot more stuff is only a click away.

So very much work in progress. But a good story, one which I thoroughly recommend.

Oddments

Newspapers should not try to compete with social media in terms of immediacy. Newspapers should exist in slower time, should be more considered. Take the time to be authoritative and trusted in a way that most of the stuff on social media is not.

The income of Financial Times readers is much higher than that of Guardian readers, certainly on the evidence of the advertisements for luxury products carried by the former. Much better able, much more willing to pay subscriptions.

While neither newspaper, generally speaking, pokes around in the private lives of footballers or those of other celebrities. Nor are they big on royalty.

The New York Times, a quality operation in the US, a lot bigger than the Guardian, is, along with Financial Times, one of the few newspapers which appear to have made a success of a paywall. A site which at first glance looks very like that of the Guardian or the Financial Times – but click on anything and you are invited to cough up. See reference 7.

With the last, ever green question being: are newspapers in the business of telling people what they ought to know, or what they want to read? Solemn and serious or pin-ups on page 3? How does one strike the balance? Which takes us right back to owners who are into public service.

References

Reference 1: Breaking News: the remaking of journalism and why it matters now - Alan Rusbridger - 2018.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/03/proportionality.html. The second previous mention of the book.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/03/progress-report.html. The first previous mention of the book.

Reference 4: https://www.theguardian.com/uk. In some large part, Rusbridger’s legacy. Snapped above. Note the advertisement for Corel – the Google version of which was noticed at reference 8.

Reference 5: Play It Again: An Amateur Against The Impossible - Alan Rusbridger – 2010.

Reference 6: https://atlanta.craigslist.org/.

Reference 7: https://www.nytimes.com/.

Reference 8: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/04/who-dun-it.html.