A Crazy Idea for Funding Local News: Charge People for It
- 6 years ago
A Crazy Idea for Funding Local News: Charge People for It
“The problem was the news business hadn’t been focused on a key question: How do I deliver a differentiated product that people would pay for?”
Her idea for differentiation was to charge a lot for The Information — a subscription is $399 a year, close to what The Wall Street Journal charges for print delivery —
but she would offer readers quality instead of volume.
The plan, for any would-be entrepreneur brave enough to try it, goes like this: Hire some very good journalists; just one or two are O. K.
Turn them loose on a large metropolitan area — try San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston or any other city going through waves of change,
and whose local press has been gutted by digital disruption.
And many news outlets — big companies like and start-ups like The Athletic, which
covers sports — are making subscriptions the center of their journalism.
Still, two years ago, she said, the site became cash-flow positive —
that is, it pays for expansion from its subscriptions — and it plans to hire a half-dozen more journalists this year, adding to a work force of 31 full-time employees.
“The problem was the news business hadn’t been focused on a key question: How do I deliver a differentiated product that people would pay for?”
Her idea for differentiation was to charge a lot for The Information — a subscription is $399 a year, close to what The Wall Street Journal charges for print delivery —
but she would offer readers quality instead of volume.
The plan, for any would-be entrepreneur brave enough to try it, goes like this: Hire some very good journalists; just one or two are O. K.
Turn them loose on a large metropolitan area — try San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston or any other city going through waves of change,
and whose local press has been gutted by digital disruption.
And many news outlets — big companies like and start-ups like The Athletic, which
covers sports — are making subscriptions the center of their journalism.
Still, two years ago, she said, the site became cash-flow positive —
that is, it pays for expansion from its subscriptions — and it plans to hire a half-dozen more journalists this year, adding to a work force of 31 full-time employees.