2018 saw journalism continue to suffer from many of the
threats which have plagued it in recent years: authoritarian measures against
press freedom, a proliferation of misinformation in the wider media sphere and
diminishing revenues. To a greater or lesser extent, all of these factors can
be linked to the ever growing prominence of the internet as a space for
political discourse and information exchange. Journalists are powerless to turn
back the clock on these developments and must, instead, find new ways of
surviving in an increasingly online culture.
When they initially moved online in the 1990s, many
newspapers opted against charging internet users for content, hoping that
increased advertising revenue would offset any decrease in sales. However,
advertisers soon made use of cheaper online options and news outlets found themselves with
limited options for alternative revenue streams to sustain the costs of quality
journalism (Fletcher and Kleis Nielsen 2017). Any attempts to charge users for
access to news content seemed to run contrary to the internet’s ‘culture of
free,’ but there are signs that this is becoming a viable option.
The Digital News Report reveals a 5 per cent increase in
Irish people who pay for online news service over the last five years. While
this increase comes from a low base, this is nonetheless encouraging given that
the proportion of those whose news consumption is primarily or completely
digital has remained relatively stable over the same period, which would point
towards an increase in consciousness of the value of quality journalism. One of
the most prominent international signs of the viability of relying on the
public’s willingness to pay for news came with The Guardian’s announcement that
the paper had recorded £800,000 operating profit for the 2018-19 financial
year. Having lost £57 million just three years previously, Guardian News &
Media ascribed the turnaround to their 655,000 monthly subscribers and one off
contributions from more than 300,000 readers (Waterson 2019).
It would be easy to suppose that this would bode well for
Irish news services given that the rate of Irish people who pay for online news
content (12%) is greater than that of British people (9%), but the picture is
more complicated. The Irish Times saw
a 26 per cent rise in digital sales in 2018, but it was the only Irish
newspaper to grow across both print and digital during this period (Slattery
2019). The Times Ireland has ceased
publishing a print edition entirely (Crowley 2019). Irish media suffers from
the difficulty of having to compete with major English language news outlets in
the UK and US. The Irish Times’
relative success in carving out a significant online subscribership could point
toward a public desire for quality Irish perspectives on world events. The
recent purchase of Irish News & Media (the parent company of The Irish Independent among other Irish
newspapers) by Belgian group Mediahuis will be an interesting indicator in this
regard. INM had previously backed down from plans to introduce a paywall for
their online content, but Mediahuis have pursued similar strategies with some
success with their other European newspapers (Brophy 2019).
Measuring current figures against those of recent years
draws attention to some curious trends. Older people are, as ever, more
interested in the news, but the percentage of older people (45+) willing to pay
for online news has scarcely risen over the last three years, while,
conversely, the percentage of 25-34 year olds has risen by 7 per cent in the same
period. It has been speculated that the growth in subscription services in
other fields (such as music and televisual content) could contribute further
towards young people’s willingness to pay for news: “the ‘culture of free’ may
begin to erode, particularly in the minds of those who have only ever
experienced an internet where paying for digital media is normal” (Fletcher and
Kleis Nielsen 2017). This chimes somewhat with other figures from the report
which indicate similar levels of interest in online subscriptions for news,
sport and music content (though the popularity of video streaming services such
as Netflix outstrip all of these considerably).
A development which seems to correlate with these figures is
the establishment of Kinzen, a news app established by former RTE journalist
and Storyful founder, Mark Little. For a €5 monthly subscription fee, users are
promised a curated news community which will liberate them “from the shallow metrics of
claps, clicks and likes” (Slattery 2018). Kinzen has raised over half a million
euro in funding, which indicates a degree of industry confidence in the public
appetite for paying for quality digital news. Following on in this vein, former
Sunday Business Post editor and
deputy editor Ian Kehoe and Tom Lyons have begun hiring staff for their new
venture, The Currency, a subscription
based online business and economics news service. Similarly, TheJournal.ie launched Noteworthy, a project which will attempt
to pursue stories based on public recommendation and secure crowd-funding for
the reporting of those stories (Bohan 2019).
Another curiosity emerging from the Digital News Report’s
figures is that those earning under €30,000 per year represent the largest
income category of those who pay for online news services. This is all the more
interesting given that other results point toward wealthier people as being
more likely to be ‘digital only’ in their news consumption. It is certainly
encouraging that those earning less still count news among their priority purchases
and, again, points towards a growing public consciousness of the need to
actively navigate their way through an online culture characterised by
misinformation. Access to quality journalism is seen by a growing number as a
necessity (or perhaps an obligation) rather than a luxury.
While the Irish public are growing more receptive to paying
for quality journalism, this remains a relatively slow process. Questions
abound over the long term viability of online subscriptions offsetting losses
in revenue caused by the decline in traditional forms of news consumption.
Future generations may look back on our era as the death throes of journalism,
or as a period of uneasy transition towards a functioning online media. To
ensure the latter, news providers must continue to champion the idea that
quality online news is a necessary expense for the discerning public. They must
emphasise the qualities that elevate the veracity, relevance and thoughtfulness
of their reporting over the misinformed and hastily compiled alternatives that
can be accessed for free.
You can read the Digital News Report 2019 here .
References
Bohan, C. (2019) ‘TheJournal.ie launches Noteworthy, a new investigative journalism website,’ TheJournal.ie. 9 April 2019. Available from https://www.thejournal.ie/thejournal-ie-noteworthy-investigative-journalism-4581536-Apr2019/
Brophy, M. (2019) ‘Mediahuis must deal with INM’s love/hate relationship with digital,’ The Irish Times. 3 May 2019. Available from https://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/opinion-mediahuis-must-deal-with-inm-s-love-hate-relationship-with-digital-1.3879814
Crowley, S. (2019) ‘The Times Ireland to cease print edition,’ RTE.ie. 21 May 2019. Available from https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2019/0521/1050863-times-ireland/
Fletcher, R. & Kleis Nielsen, R. (2017) ‘Paying for Online News,’ Digital Journalism, 5:9. Available from https://www-tandfonline-com.dcu.idm.oclc.org/doi/pdf/10.1080/21670811.2016.1246373?needAccess=true
Slattery, L. (2018). ‘Mark Little’s Kinzen news app to launch in January,’ The Irish Times. 23 October 2018. Available from https://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/mark-little-s-kinzen-news-app-to-launch-in-january-1.3673180
Slattery, L. (2019). ‘‘The Irish Times’ grows daily circulation 2% to 79,406,’ The Irish Times. 21 February 2019. Available from https://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/the-irish-times-grows-daily-circulation-2-to-79-406-1.3801654
Waterson, J. (2019). ‘Guardian breaks even helped by success of supporter strategy,’ The Guardian. 1 May 2019. Available from https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/may/01/guardian-breaks-even-helped-by-success-of-supporter-strategy
