A recent Time Magazine article has some advice for newspapers: sell your on-line content instead of giving it away free. Ironically, this very same Time article is available for free on the web.
Nevertheless, it’s not a bad idea. Specifically, the author (Walter Isaacson) suggests coming up with a system similar to iTunes where readers can easily purchase an article for a small amount of money that gets charged to their credit card. Assuming there were such a system in place, the question is, will people pay for online news content like they do for online music downloads?
The 19-year-old college student who sat next to me on the train ride home from Chicago today says no. She’s a journalism major at Lincoln College. She said the “younger generation” (as opposed to my “older” generation, evidently) won’t pay for this kind of content because they’re “not really into reading that much.”
Not really into reading? Lord help us. If she’s right, then the economics of journalism is the least of our worries.
Not surprising at all, C.J.
How can there be any time to sit and read a book when kids are either online, playing XBox or texting?
Maybe if someone taped a power cord to a book a kid would read it.
I hope it does not happen. I live in an area where I cannot access hardcopy news, etc. easily and I rely heavily on the internet for information. So, too do schools. My children are expected to do research and/or prepare current event reports on a weekly basis based on teacher expectations that such information is freely available.
Many journal article sources that students would use for higher level high school and college research papers is already fee based.
Well back a hundred years or so ago when I was 19 I didn’t read the newspaper either. I only accessed it when I needed to research an article for a college course. But as for general reading of the daily paper it was out of my realm. We didn’t have computers then to keep us busy or cell phones or electronic games, but we still didn’t read the paper. It wasn’t until we got much older and married and settled that we looked forward to the daily paper with our morning coffee. So there is a very good chance that today’s young people won’t read it either, unless looking for something particular for a class or for employment ads. Flip on the television to anyone of eight or more channels and get the entire news, local and worldwide while you are getting ready to go to work or school. Who needs the newspaper? And they are getting pretty pricey lately.
Sell the news? I guess that is the next logical step from separate news departments where advertising was not allowed to entertainment/news programs with “talent” to deliver it, to just out and out sell it… that will be the death of the broadcast news medium.
It’s the same thing with radio and TV… what once was a cherished FREEDOM of the airwaves has become a corporate monopoly… you want TV or radio… PAY FOR IT. (Just wait, there will be no free radio in the future.) Show me how freedom of speech works when it is only available by subscription.
I believe that the overall reading of ‘kids’ today IS lacking, but then I have always been an avid reader of anything and everything. My son will not read a book unless it is assigned by school. The strange thing is…..he usually ends up loving the book! I suggest he read other books by the same author, etc, but as soon as he is finished, it ends up in the closet. I will not see another book in his hand until the next school assignment.
Students and the i-net? Most ‘students’ I know do not even know how to use the i-net as a research tool. They can’t find appropriate articles and/or information. ‘Limewire’ they can figure out. Trying to find primary documents pertaining to the American Revolution…….. they get lost. They can’t conduct a simple ‘search.’ Info overload?
In the interest of full disclosure, I am of the “younger generation” myself. I graduated from U of I almost two years ago and I’m a young professional in downtown Peoria. While there is a notable contingent in “my” generation who are the “omg lol!!!1!!” types who drive the stereotypes often held by the “older” generation, there are just as many of us who are normal, functional members of society. So, just as not all the people in the older generation tell me get off their lawns or to turn down that damn rap music (as I was told by a woman at Sterling and I-74 when I was listening to the “Lido Shuffle” by Boz Scaggs with the windows down a few weeks back), not all of us young bucks shun books and education for video games and Facebook.
That being said, I’m curious as to when people here apparently thought news and media were ever free. I BUY a newspaper every day (the Chicago Sun-Times); it’s not given to me for free. It’d cost me less to read it online, but I prefer reading the paper itself. Even online, the vast majority of sites (this blog not included) have advertising that you have to look at that keeps it “free”. You do pay for these advertisements by taking up visual pixels on your monitor that could be otherwise filled with information. Even radio is not free; turn on the radio right now and odds are good that you can’t listen for 10 minutes without being interrupted by a merchant peddling goods of some sort. That’s how you pay for these “free” services – you pay with your time, not your money. Accepting the common postulate that “time is money” and you see that the premise is the same.
Of course, there is a trend towards more advertising in paid services — cable/satellite TV, for instance, still have advertisements despite paying monthly fees for the service.
iTunes does charge per use, but there are no advertisements. Just last night I purchased an episode of a TV show on iTunes for $1.99 — and the advertisements were edited out.
Of course, we’re missing the bigger picture here. While people do purchase music through sites like iTunes, there are also a lot of people out there who get their digital music through less legitimate means. If we start charging for news streams, there’s no doubt some people will find ways around the system and get their news for free anyway — especially with sites like Wikipedia.
Point well taken.
When I moved to Peoria at the beginning of my freshman year in high school, the closest book store to my home was the Book Emporium at Sheridan Village. About once every couple of weeks I would go there under my own power and using my own money, buy a couple of books of my own choosing, not assigned work. I would usually see other kids my own age doing the same thing.
That scenario-a kid using his own transportation and his own money to pick out his own books to read hasn’t happened 12 times in the 12 years I’ve owned a used book store in Peoria. Kids have better things to do. You and I might choose a book over 100 channels of TV, computers, and X-box games, but kids sure don’t.
If kids can’t get news from the computer or TV, they won’t get it.
My 14-year old daughter uses her money to buy books at used (and new) bookstores. It happens more than you think.
Lois: Your daughter might be able to get some books for free from the dumpster behind the main public library. Just check out CJ’s previous post about the library CREW program. I still cannot understand why the library does not have a free library book give-a-way day. My friend shared with me that will be the end of her giving brand new books she has received and never read to the library.
Lois, did you not catch the fact that Paul runs a bookstore? Yep your daughter reads so you know more than a guy that sells books for a living. Well don’t just take Paul’s word for it check out book numbers in general. Most in the industry expect Borders/Walden books to fall into bankruptcy this year. Barnes and Noble is in only slightly better shape. Most major publishers are on the rocks. No one in the industry is doing more then scrape by and yet you say that kids reading happens more then Paul thinks. Sorry but your not just a bit wrong, your crazy farm out of touch with reality wrong.
If your daughter reads that is great! There remain a handful of kids out there who do read. My own children read an endless stream of books. Most children (and adults) however have not read even one book in the last year. That is just a fact.
“Most children (and adults) however have not read even one book in the last year. That is just a fact.”
Which is why the GOP can get away with waving a 1000 page piece of legislation, cry about it being too big to read, and get away with it in the media.
Mahkno, I think the issue was that they had only a few days to read this 1000 page piece of legislation… and I’m sure it wasn’t light reading.
but they read the one Bush pushed through with no stipulations?
Diane, I have read pieces of the legislation on Thomas.gov. I have read a good many bills in the past as well. It’s not that difficult and they are available to the public. You can also delve into the U.S. code and the regulatory libraries as well.
Most of those Congressmen do have fairly decent educational backgrounds (incl Mr Schock), with most having post graduate degrees (mostly in law too). Now I can’t speak for their post graduate experiences but for the ‘readings’ courses I took, a 1000 pages a night for study was de rigueur. It isn’t easy but it certainly can be done. Most of these congressmen have staff that would do this sort of work as well. So… the whole dog n pony of ‘omg I don’t have time to read the thing’ is a little hollow. But it probably gets pretty good mileage from those who don’t even read one book a year.
I bet a good many of them did look it over but you wouldn’t know that when they were in front of the camera.
You can also delve into the U.S. code and the regulatory libraries as well. I’d rather clean 1000 toilets.