<story><title>Why won&apos;t some people pay for news? (2022)</title><url>https://diaspora.glasswings.com/posts/867c94d0ba87013aca41448a5b29e257</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hatethissite42</author><text>&amp;gt; who really wants to read an interview - I want to watch an interview. Give me information that can&amp;#x27;t be expressed in video and that isn&amp;#x27;t 2000 words long with long, drawn out flowery language.&lt;p&gt;Me.  I am exactly opposite on this.  I don&amp;#x27;t want to watch a video if it could have been an article.  I don&amp;#x27;t think this is uncommon, either.</text></item><item><author>65</author><text>I used to work for newspapers (as a software engineer) so I&amp;#x27;m very familiar with this conundrum.&lt;p&gt;Ultimately it&amp;#x27;s the value proposition, particularly with regional newspapers. I worked at a regional newspaper and their subscription price was more than the New York Times. Their subscriber base was basically all old, suburban white people who still got print newspapers. Print is still the cash cow of regionals to this day.&lt;p&gt;They had terrible technology. Stories, of course, were always presented as... stories. They were stuck in their ways. No emphasis on, like the post mentions, creating good data products - e.g. events, restaurants, weather maps, etc.&lt;p&gt;A big hurdle for newspapers is, yes, on giving away their news for free in the early days of the web - creating a certain expectation. But also their arrogance of not adapting to the times. The Charlotte Agenda was one of the only digital only profitable news publications before it got bought by Axios. They made money from a jobs board and other ideas (that I am now forgetting) that would cater to a regional audience.&lt;p&gt;News people tend to think &amp;quot;journalism is sacred&amp;quot; to the point of myopia. Their product is outdated. I read the New York Times for national news, but regional news (which is the majority of newspapers) consistently don&amp;#x27;t appeal to me. Why would I pay to read about a carjacking in a far off neighborhood? Yes, give me important stories, but also give me visuals and data and products that would fit into the &amp;quot;not video&amp;quot; segment. Even feature stories just don&amp;#x27;t have much pizzaz - who really wants to read an interview - I want to watch an interview. Give me information that can&amp;#x27;t be expressed in video and that isn&amp;#x27;t 2000 words long with long, drawn out flowery language.&lt;p&gt;Needless to say I don&amp;#x27;t work in news anymore. The people are very interesting and I&amp;#x27;d work in news again. But at the end of the day newspapers are selling fax machines.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>driscoll42</author><text>100% I hate the videofication of the internet. So much content is locked behind a video that is vastly more difficult to pull detail out of and search and just text. Videos are a great supplement to most text, but rarely do they make a good primary source of information.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why won&apos;t some people pay for news? (2022)</title><url>https://diaspora.glasswings.com/posts/867c94d0ba87013aca41448a5b29e257</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hatethissite42</author><text>&amp;gt; who really wants to read an interview - I want to watch an interview. Give me information that can&amp;#x27;t be expressed in video and that isn&amp;#x27;t 2000 words long with long, drawn out flowery language.&lt;p&gt;Me.  I am exactly opposite on this.  I don&amp;#x27;t want to watch a video if it could have been an article.  I don&amp;#x27;t think this is uncommon, either.</text></item><item><author>65</author><text>I used to work for newspapers (as a software engineer) so I&amp;#x27;m very familiar with this conundrum.&lt;p&gt;Ultimately it&amp;#x27;s the value proposition, particularly with regional newspapers. I worked at a regional newspaper and their subscription price was more than the New York Times. Their subscriber base was basically all old, suburban white people who still got print newspapers. Print is still the cash cow of regionals to this day.&lt;p&gt;They had terrible technology. Stories, of course, were always presented as... stories. They were stuck in their ways. No emphasis on, like the post mentions, creating good data products - e.g. events, restaurants, weather maps, etc.&lt;p&gt;A big hurdle for newspapers is, yes, on giving away their news for free in the early days of the web - creating a certain expectation. But also their arrogance of not adapting to the times. The Charlotte Agenda was one of the only digital only profitable news publications before it got bought by Axios. They made money from a jobs board and other ideas (that I am now forgetting) that would cater to a regional audience.&lt;p&gt;News people tend to think &amp;quot;journalism is sacred&amp;quot; to the point of myopia. Their product is outdated. I read the New York Times for national news, but regional news (which is the majority of newspapers) consistently don&amp;#x27;t appeal to me. Why would I pay to read about a carjacking in a far off neighborhood? Yes, give me important stories, but also give me visuals and data and products that would fit into the &amp;quot;not video&amp;quot; segment. Even feature stories just don&amp;#x27;t have much pizzaz - who really wants to read an interview - I want to watch an interview. Give me information that can&amp;#x27;t be expressed in video and that isn&amp;#x27;t 2000 words long with long, drawn out flowery language.&lt;p&gt;Needless to say I don&amp;#x27;t work in news anymore. The people are very interesting and I&amp;#x27;d work in news again. But at the end of the day newspapers are selling fax machines.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bell-cot</author><text>&lt;i&gt;Sometimes&lt;/i&gt; me.  But 99% of the time, my preference is for a competent journalist distilling the interview into an article.  Thus sparing me all the ways that politeness, chit-chat, and long-winded stuff can turn a 1,000-word article into a 4,000-word interview.</text></comment>