Blog No. 6

    The future of newspapers has been the topic of conversation since The New York Times announced that it would be charging readers for online access if they view more than 20 articles per month. The question is, will people be willing to pay for their news? Are readers that loyal to The Times? As much as I would love to say yes, I don’t see this benefiting The Times. At first I thought it might work IF they included video in the 20-story limit. The Times has video that other newspapers can’t even begin to compete with. And although their writing is extraordinary, people can find these stories anywhere. The video, however, they can only find at The Times.
    Why would readers pay for something they can easily find elsewhere? To me, it seems counterintuitive to charge for stories but not for video. As Schaffer puts it in her response to our previous reading, “In looking to reconstruct journalism, I’d start not by asking how do we get money for what we’ve always done. I’d ask instead: How do we provide something worth paying for?” To me, outstanding video and multimedia is worth paying for. The LA Times makes an interesting point, too: “Journalists and media outlets will have to plunge into new territory and do it without any assurance that the extra work will make them enough money to keep reporting the news.”