Are you willing to pay for News websites ?

[Hallu]

Recently The Age and The Herald Sun's websites have decided that you can't access their articles for free anymore. It's not limited content for theage (which would have been a far more acceptable solution), it's no content at all. For the Herald Sun, you have to register for a light version (I haven't registered to check what it means) and you need to pay to access the full articles. Both did it at the exact same time, which is clearly a concerted decision that shouldn't happen amongst rival papers... Anyway... What I do now is simply copy/paste the title of an article, and google gives me a website were somebody has already copied/pasted it, or the exact same article is published on a free Sydney or Brisbane website, obviously owned by the same company.

So they say it's to KEEP the content as professional as usual... Except that the "usual" for them is actually pretty rubbish already... It's the modern "I'll give you gruesome exaggerated facts over well researched brilliantly written articles", that the UK and the US love so much, and that is infecting mainland Europe as well. A remarkable US TV show, "The Newsroom", will give you some insight regarding that situation, as well as the 5th season of "The Wire". So why should I pay for such garbage, half of it being the private life of Aussie celebrities ? This is the wrong decision from the big papers since nowadays blog writers, who have freedom of speech, unlike mainstream journalists, are getting more and more interesting. What started as Tintin wannabes is now far more serious. And such decisions by big papers will simply push their audience towards the blogs, or free and fresh thinking small papers.

Would you pay to access theage.com.au or heraldsun.com.au (and I'm guessing soon themercury.com.au ) ?

[iGBH]

I won't.
Lots of ways around it already. The sites use cookies, so if you reach your 30 article limit in one browser, just use another. Counter starts again. Alternatively just stop the page loading before the annoying pop up comes up taking you back to the home page by pressing esc.
Or, even better there are scripts for firefox and extenstions for Chrome which just take care of all of it for you.

I'm sure over time though they will start to tighten up on this.

[perfectlydark]

I sure wont be thats for sure. The quality of mainstream news is so bad at the moment and is either fluffy celebrity crap, opinion passed off as news or at best plainly unedited non-intelligable garbage.

[LandSailor]

Not that Im likely to pay for any myself but you can hardly blame news companies for experimenting with new revenue models given their income has been decimated by free online content and the total wipeout of their classifieds business by Ebay etc.

Im guessing a significant factor in the poor quality content we now see is due to massive staff cutbacks with less people spread thinly doing more. Its alot cheaper to rehash syndicated articles and simply write opinion pieces from their desk compared to funding long, active investigations of any kind.
Also, given the massive volume of web analytics data available for web publishers, online news companies know with extreme accuracy what interests most people so like any business they focus on the best return for cost and effort. So unfortunately, the news we see online now is what interests the majority of people.

Not sure how this is all going to pan out..it may be that the kind of cheap journalism we see now is the only viable news business model for most operators.
Maybe the only solution is to setup an RSS feed reader with your own select list of feeds and forget about the sites with paywalls.

[photohiker]

I look at it this way:

For decades, the newspaper industry has tried to convince us to buy their rags on the basis that they are great value - because of the advertising, the actual cost of the paper used to print it is more than you have to pay for the newspaper.

The electronic editions have advertising.

The cost of delivery is negligible. They create the online edition once per issue and never have any printing or paper costs. They have saved the enormous costs of printing mills, transport etc, etc.

So, the online, advert supported edition should be completely free. If they really want us to pay for an online edition, it should be advert free.

On top of this, the whole news industry has descended into a bunch of weeds presenting minimal news heavily wrapped in opinion and blinkered to anything that occurred last week even if it is important to the news at hand.

Not paying for it because it shouldn't cost what they want to charge, and it isn't worth buying anyway. My only regret is that there must be some good young journalists in there somewhere and I don't know how they will survive.

[Hallu]

The problem is that the people don't decide what's news. News are news... Have we gone more stupid than in the past that we can't understand anything social, political, or economical anymore ? I mean I take a European website, and what do I see on the front page ? The struggle for the Senkaku Island between China and Japan, new failure on Korean negotiations, new incidents at Fukushima, miners on strike in Colombia, new reform in Greece, scientists silence Down syndrome in vitro, etc...
TheAge website ? The world's faster lawn-mower, a storm approaching Melbourne, a bashing victim missing her skull (tasteful), "Cory Monteith was looking 'fit and fresh' in final days", I mean come on...
Do you guys know by any chance a worthwhile Aussie news website ?

[doogs]

The problem is that the people don't decide what's news. News are news... Have we gone more stupid than in the past that we can't understand anything social, political, or economical anymore ? I mean I take a European website, and what do I see on the front page ? The struggle for the Senkaku Island between China and Japan, new failure on Korean negotiations, new incidents at Fukushima, miners on strike in Colombia, new reform in Greece, scientists silence Down syndrome in vitro, etc...
TheAge website ? The world's faster lawn-mower, a storm approaching Melbourne, a bashing victim missing her skull (tasteful), "Cory Monteith was looking 'fit and fresh' in final days", I mean come on...
Do you guys know by any chance a worthwhile Aussie news website ?

I have to agree that Australian news is very insular, sorry Hallu haven't come across a decent Australia news website yet

[frenchy_84]

Johnathon Homes-a-court on his last episode of media watch with his final words talked about this. He made a plea with viewers, that regardless of what ever paper we read, wether it be SMH et al (and he hates these papers), Tasmanian times or Right Wing Weekly (I made that one up ) buy a membership, because with out us supporting journalism the quality of journalism will continue in its current spiral downwards. And the revenue holes will be filled up by people like Gina Rinehart with their own interests included.

[perfectlydark]

Photohiker thats exactly how I see it also. I dont doubt big expensive investigations would be hard to maintain but it would help to have reporters actually repor t once in a while rather than sit at a desk seeking "comment" from celeb managers or politicians..
another problem is the lack of balanced news. In yet to see one source that is neither right or left leaning

[frenchy_84]

Do you guys know by any chance a worthwhile Aussie news website ?

http://theconversation.com/au

[LandSailor]

I have to agree that Australian news is very insular, sorry Hallu haven't come across a decent Australia news website yet

I think so too. We can be a bit of a country town on the global stage sometimes. Its possibly a bit of a scale issue as well. The population of Victoria is really only big enough to support 1 or 2 newspapers which by default cater to a broad audience. Anything other than the majority would be too small to be financially viable if you were publishing anything other than syndicated content.

[matagi]

Do you guys know by any chance a worthwhile Aussie news website ?

http://theconversation.com/au

+1

Although not a news website as such, it is an academic website devoted to news commentary, but you do get some very intelligent analysis and background insight into issues which are currently in the news.

I've been checking out "The Guardian" website as well. They have recently launched an Australian edition online.

[corvus]

I just buy the NW Tasssie Advocate Newspaper for the local news and rely on ABC radio news for up to date information on what is happening elsewhere.
corvus

[Son of a Beach]

I use the ABC news website, mostly. Free with no (non-ABC) ads. It's quite good. You can set it up for your region so you can more easily see news that is local to you.

To answer the original question - no, I would not pay for a news website unless there was no other choice. And certainly not for one that was covered with ads.

[Clusterpod]

Mainstrem Propaganda is already way too prevalent for me to consider actually paying for the privilege of further coverage.

While sites such as The Conversation, IndependantAustralia and New Matilda continue to provide superior (in every way that matters) news coverage, I'm not sure why anyone would.

If you need the daily car-crash tallies, sporting results and kitten-in-roof puff-pieces you can always use the ABC.

[stepbystep]

I just buy the NW Tasssie Advocate Newspaper for the local news and rely on ABC radio news for up to date information on what is happening elsewhere.
corvus

Well that explains a bit

I've worked in the news media for 20 years and if you trust any one or two sources you are sadly ill informed. There are but a handful of sources that provide information worldwide to ALL of our mainstream media. I record there direct feeds and watch our 'journalists' transcribe....

My approach has always been to read a cross section and subscribe or 'follow' various others, often specialised or niche sectors, commentary or reporting.

My basic approach is, keep your friends close and your enemies even closer. Social media is brilliant these days, just don't read the comments.... Oh wait!

[Nuts]

So we can just ask you then?

I just ask around, maybe I underestimate my role in world events. Do scan a few online sources with a weather ear for BS.
'Enemies closer'? Nice Job the media?

Hey corv do you keep the papers? I'm making some no-dig garden beds : ) You can see The Advocate online? : http://www.theadvocate.com.au/story/164 ... rum/?cs=87

[tastrax]

No I would not pay for a news site

I also like the Conversation site, especially the recent addition of "election fact check"

http://theconversation.com/au/factcheck

[corvus]

I just buy the NW Tasssie Advocate Newspaper for the local news and rely on ABC radio news for up to date information on what is happening elsewhere.
corvus

Well that explains a bit

I've worked in the news media for 20 years and if you trust any one or two sources you are sadly ill informed. There are but a handful of sources that provide information worldwide to ALL of our mainstream media. I record there direct feeds and watch our 'journalists' transcribe....

My approach has always been to read a cross section and subscribe or 'follow' various others, often specialised or niche sectors, commentary or reporting.

My basic approach is, keep your friends close and your enemies even closer. Social media is brilliant these days, just don't read the comments.... Oh wait!

Son you are a cameraman ( albeit good at it ) not a news reporter so why ask what I do .
corvus

[stepbystep]

???

I've worked most jobs in the media corvus, currently I'm a producer/director that freelances as an editor/cameraman. Never been a news camo, but I've written a few 'stories'.

Reporters are common, journalists are rare.

Btw I also enjoy 'The Conversation' amongst others.

[corvus]

???

I've worked most jobs in the media corvus, currently I'm a producer/director that freelances as an editor/cameraman. Never been a news camo, but I've written a few 'stories'.

Reporters are common, journalists are rare.

Btw I also enjoy 'The Conversation' amongst others.

So why your comment "Well that explains a bit" wow you have many hats none that are really earth shattering ,an example would enlighten us .
corvus

[stepbystep]

Sorry Corvus my poor humour at work again.

Agreed the earth will survive just fine without me.

[PeterJ]

I am not opposed to paying and have made donations to some news sites. At the moment I can get sufficient news and information from Guardian Australia, The Conversation, New Matilda and the ABC. There are also several other sites I read via RSS feeds
I used to read the Age for iPad which is a good, however none of the payment schemes now introduced suit me. I am not living in Victoria or NSW and both the Age and SMH are very much state centred. There is plenty of other good articles but there are also several writers of opinion that I don’t want to read, let alone pay money for.

[bailz66]

Will never pay for anything on the net...

They didn't reduce advertising and their articles are not that great any more anyway. Plenty of other ways to read the news.

I will continue to use The Age with Private Browsing which lets you read all the articles anyway but I expect they will close that loophole in 12 months. Then in another 24 months once they are bankrupt a new news site will pop up

[walkinTas]

Yes! Buying and reading newspapers and magazines in electronic print is far more preferable than chopping down forests to produce newsprint. It's not reasonable to expect these businesses to produce free products. The web does offer the opportunity to make income from other sources - mostly advertising - but I not sure how much income and whether it is sufficient to be able to offer a free product.

There has been a lot of speculation the social media sites and the like will eventually replace the need for news and reporters. Everyone with a mobile phone is potentially a member of the paparazzi. Maybe this is the future of news. Maybe we will be willing to rely on Wiki-Leaks and the like to investigate and report on what's really happening. I think a strong news media is an important part of a healthy society.

[Clusterpod]

I think a strong news media is an important part of a healthy society.

But we don't have a strong news media, at least not in the "mainstream". We have a biased and corrupt corporate product masquerading as news.

Now that their business model is failing, they are trying to create a new market.

I fear that like print media, these media corporations will just dictate terms for future delivery of "news" and related materials on the net.

I, for one, will not support them willingly.

[GD4Up]

I think a strong news media is an important part of a healthy society.

But we don't have a strong news media, at least not in the "mainstream". We have a biased and corrupt corporate product masquerading as news.

Now that their business model is failing, they are trying to create a new market.

I fear that like print media, these media corporations will just dictate terms for future delivery of "news" and related materials on the net.

I, for one, will not support them willingly.

Ditto, if they were putting out unbiased coverage and actually reporting, instead of trying to make, news I'd be willing to pay.

When I lived on the mainland we used to be critical of the newspapers and lack of consistent quality but having now experienced the Tasmanian daily newspapers I know realise how good we had it back then. 'Sloppy' and 'half-baked' are the nicest words for the general standard shown in Tasmania. The ABC for local news and The Conversation for more topical issues are the original sources that I trust but you still need to filter out the occasional piece of sensationalism from those.

[icefest]

Maybe the only solution is to setup an RSS feed reader with your own select list of feeds and forget about the sites with paywalls.

Do you guys know by any chance a worthwhile Aussie news website ?

I run a combination of google news and RSS reader.
My basic news come from google news. I blacklist every site that I come acrosss with a paywall and have multiple sections with different keywords (World, Australia, Health, Space, Physics, Science, Snow, Antarctica, Global Warming, Sea level, Alternative Energy, Solar Power, Technology, Android, Ipod).
There are a couple, more personal topics, that I have removed from that list.
The sections where there are more changes have more headline topics.

This gets me my basic news, disasters etc.

I also have a RSS reader (Feedly, now that google reader is RIP) where I have more detailed blog new posts.
This is mainly sea ice blogs, bushwalking blogs, and some scientific journal article tagwords that I keep and eye on.
-icefest