Journalists Are Perfect. We’ll Pay.

banging on about advertising, marketing and social media

29 July 2009 6 Comments

Today Mumbrella published an extract from News Digital Media’s Richard Freudenstein’s speech at Sydney’s Advertising & Marketing Summit. It was titled ‘If the content is good enough, people will pay’ and Freudenstein says…

“The problem is that even the best intentioned amateur blogger doesn’t hold the same standards of accuracy or accountability as a professional journalist.”

Somehow I don’t think we’ll be pulling the credit cards out of our wallets anytime soon…

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6 Comments »

Tim Burrowes - Mumbrella said:

Or from today’s The Punch: “NAB to scarp (sic) major fees”…

# 29 July 2009 at 11:04 am

Mandi said:

How many times did you proof read your post before publishing?? Meanwhile if you’re quick you can see a weird typo in your twitter stream up there on the right …

Screw the spelling/typos, what about real news instead of the sensational crap and scare mongering they usually spit out?

# 29 July 2009 at 11:29 am

Kate Kendall said:

I think they need to describe what they mean by ‘good enough’ as good enough isn’t good enough! What is the USP of good? For a general news site like News.com.au, all it offers are the headlines (albeit shoddy ones at that). You can now get the headlines everywhere… for free. No one will pay for just the headlines or accompanying summaries.

As I’ve mentioned around tbefore, users pay for content from sites like the WSJ and Crikey because it actually offers something different – you can’t get it elsewhere.

# 29 July 2009 at 11:46 am

Kate Kendall said:

Hey Nathan,

Can you subscribe to follow up comments on your blog?

Cheers,

Kate

# 29 July 2009 at 11:50 am

Nathan Bush (author) said:

Agreed – the typos are only a start. There’s got to be value in new and ‘exclusive’ content as well. And as Kate says, that’s why WSJ and Crikey are popular.

Perhaps there’s a better agument that the future of blogs is subscription content?

Kate, unfortunately it doesn’t seem that this template allows it. I’ll have a play around with it tonight and see if there’s a widget or addon I can get to build this in. Unless anyone knows of one?

# 29 July 2009 at 11:54 am

Gavin Heaton said:

I actually cancelled my subscription to SMH a while back. In general, I don’t read The Australian or any other News Corp media. And in any case, I would hardly hold either of them in high regards in terms of grammar, sub-editing or consistency.

Confusing “amateurism” with blogging is a mistake. Thinking that people will pay for content based on your masthead is a delusion.

# 5 August 2009 at 10:29 am