Hi Bonnie … always interested in your work - perspectives, insights, background research, output! - given your busy stage of life. Keep up the good work as much as is possible … dlc
Yeah, that's increasingly common and not, to my mind, a bad thing. On the contrary: Good journalism costs money, and that money has to come from somewhere.
Most media outlets are not nonprofits, which means they don't have wealthy donors underwriting their work. (There are not enough people willing to donate, even if most outlets wanted to operate this way.) That leaves two primary options: subscriptions or advertising.
In the pre-internet era, advertising was very profitable and, because of the common practice of having a firewall between the editorial and business offices of newspapers, typically not a negative influence on the integrity of the journalistic work. That's no longer how the industry works.
Online advertising pays waaaaaaaaay too little to serve as an adequate source of income for most outlets because there is far, far, far more competition in the market now. And because online ads tie revenue to website popularity, it serves as a constant incentive to produce low-quality, high-volume, sensationalist content to attract more eyeballs.
The subscription model is not perfect, but it is a far superior approach for journalistic quality and integrity. Subscriptions also have the virtue of making journalism like every other industry: We make a product and sell it to our customers for money. Almost every expense that goes into making high-quality journalism in print is still there when you make high-quality journalism online. Writers still need salaries. Good research still takes time and costs money. Subscriptions pay those bills.
And look, I get it -- I also have that instinct to expect every piece of content online to be free. I also hate to run into a paywall (and have jumped my fair share of them). But the reality is: Good work isn't free, nor should it be, and that includes good journalism. So yes, many of these links require subscriptions, because I aim to link to good work that is worth your time -- and money.
Hi Bonnie … always interested in your work - perspectives, insights, background research, output! - given your busy stage of life. Keep up the good work as much as is possible … dlc
thanks, Don!
Almost all of these links require a subscription
Yeah, that's increasingly common and not, to my mind, a bad thing. On the contrary: Good journalism costs money, and that money has to come from somewhere.
Most media outlets are not nonprofits, which means they don't have wealthy donors underwriting their work. (There are not enough people willing to donate, even if most outlets wanted to operate this way.) That leaves two primary options: subscriptions or advertising.
In the pre-internet era, advertising was very profitable and, because of the common practice of having a firewall between the editorial and business offices of newspapers, typically not a negative influence on the integrity of the journalistic work. That's no longer how the industry works.
Online advertising pays waaaaaaaaay too little to serve as an adequate source of income for most outlets because there is far, far, far more competition in the market now. And because online ads tie revenue to website popularity, it serves as a constant incentive to produce low-quality, high-volume, sensationalist content to attract more eyeballs.
The subscription model is not perfect, but it is a far superior approach for journalistic quality and integrity. Subscriptions also have the virtue of making journalism like every other industry: We make a product and sell it to our customers for money. Almost every expense that goes into making high-quality journalism in print is still there when you make high-quality journalism online. Writers still need salaries. Good research still takes time and costs money. Subscriptions pay those bills.
And look, I get it -- I also have that instinct to expect every piece of content online to be free. I also hate to run into a paywall (and have jumped my fair share of them). But the reality is: Good work isn't free, nor should it be, and that includes good journalism. So yes, many of these links require subscriptions, because I aim to link to good work that is worth your time -- and money.