Capitalist Propaganda Isn't Free - Boson Main Stream Media Have a Problem - Who Will Fund the Bosses' Messages? (Boson Workers) 9 Sept 2019

Some say the earliest 'newspapers' were hand written reports of shipping and goings on about town in Germany and in Italian city-states in the 1400's.  Two hundred years ago in the American Revolution, and the French Revolution newspapers were often produced by passionate campaigners for a political or social cause. 


(Title page of Carolus' Relation from 1609, the earliest newspaper)

(Liberator Newspaper Editor and Publisher - William Lloyd Garrison - Boson Common Sculpture)

 In the New England area the newspapers printed by Anti-Slavery Abolitionists like William Loyd Garrison were sold on the streets and hand to hand for a modest sum that was also supposed to help the cause.  But then in the 1850's a publisher decided to sell a newspaper on the streets of London for less than the cost of producing the paper by selling advertisements that would generate the money to pay for reporters and paper and printing.

In the US in the 1950's and 1960's downtown department stores and suburban shopping malls ran a lot of advertising in daily and Sunday newspapers.  They wanted a bland seemingly neutral newspaper style, and that's what they got.  It was called objectivity.

But, those advertisers are gone.  And the internet came along.  Newspapers as physical print have sold less and less and less.  The online versions of the same 'newspapers' simply do not generate as much advertising as the old model did.  There is too much competition.  So much of the main stream news is the same that it doesn't matter where a person reads the latest propaganda.  Who needs to pay for Anti-Trump news?  Anti-Trump news is free everywhere.  Perhaps the New York Times or Washington Post has a witty columnist who can turn a phrase to skewer Donald Trump one more time in some unique way, but... so what?

Since liberal elitist establishment and elitist right wing propaganda is unescapable in this society, why pay for it? 

The media has a big problem, Reuters Institute says: Who will pay for the news?

 (Reuters) - News organizations are being challenged by technology giants and unsettled by a broader lack of trust but they have a much deeper problem: most people don’t want to pay for online news, the Reuters Institute found.

Swiftly accelerating mobile internet and smartphones have revolutionized the delivery of news and destroyed the business models of many news organizations over the past 20 years, leading to falling revenues, layoffs and takeovers.

The mass migration of advertising to U.S. technology giants such as Facebook, Google and Amazon has hammered revenues while more than half the world’s population now has access to news via an internet connection.

But will people actually pay for news?

The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism said in its annual Digital News Report that most people would not pay for online news and that there had been only a small increase in the proportion of people willing to do so in the last six years.

Even among those who do pay, there is “subscription fatigue” - many are tired of being asked to pay for so many different subscriptions. Many will opt for films or music rather than pay for news. So some media companies will fail.

“Much of the population is perfectly happy with the news that they can access for free and even amongst those who are willing to pay, the majority are only willing to sign up for one subscription,” Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, director of the Reuters Institute, said by telephone.

“A lot of the public is really alienated from a lot of the journalism that they see - they don’t find it particularly trustworthy, they don’t find it particularly relevant and they don’t find it leaves them in a better place.”

While many news organizations add paywalls and some see increases in digital subscriptions, there has been little change in the proportion of people paying for online news, apart from the “Trump bump” rise in the United States in 2016/2017.



In the United States, those paying for news online were likely to have a university degree and be wealthy: The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post did well on digital.  Still, almost 40 percent of new digital subscriptions at the New York Times are for crosswords and cooking, the Reuters Institute said, citing an article by Vox.

In Britain, around a third of those surveyed said they avoided the news due to Brexit. Leave voters said they avoided the news as it made them sad and said they could not rely on the news being true. There has been no Brexit bounce.

“If news organizations want to cut through with a direct route to users in an environment dominated by platforms, if they want to convince people to pay for their journalism then they must convince people that the journalism they publish has value for them, for the public,” Nielsen said.

NETFLIX, APPLE AND AMAZON



As they fight for revenue, news organizations are facing a growing threat from entertainment providers such as Netflix , Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Prime.

“In some countries, subscription fatigue may also be setting in, with the majority preferring to spend their limited budget on entertainment (Netflix/Spotify) rather than news,” said Nic Newman, a senior research associate at the Reuters Institute.

“Not surprisingly, news comes low down the list when compared with other services such as Netflix and Spotify – especially for the younger half of the population,” he said.

When asked what media subscription they would pick if they had only one for the next year, just 7% of under 45-year-olds picked news. The report showed 37% would opt for online video and 15% for online music.

Aggregators are also waiting in the wings: Apple News+ offers a single priced subscription for some access to premium titles including TIME, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Vogue, The Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times.

That could deny publishers a direct link with consumers, limiting the information they have to make targeted advertising more effective, and valuable.



“Despite the greater opportunities for paid content, it is likely that most commercial news provision will remain free at the point of use, dependent on low-margin advertising, a market where big tech platforms hold most of the cards,” Newman said.

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Thomson Reuters Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Thomson Reuters, funds the Reuters Institute. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-media/the-media-has-a-big-problem-reuters-institute-says-who-will-pay-for-the-news-idUSKCN1TC2WV
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