"How to Make Newspapers Profitable Again"
June 27, 2024 6:17 AM Subscribe
The Real Story of the Crisis at the Washington Post (The Atlantic gift, Brian Stelter)
This has also illustrated how utterly fucked journalistic culture is in the UK, given Lewis' tenure there. There's a few reasons for that, I'd imagine - the lack of the robust legal protections that the US press has, the existence of compromised systems like the royal rata, the elite old boys' network that forms the cornerstone of high level networking, to name a few. And, of course, there's also Lewis coming out of the morass that is the Murdoch empire as well.
posted by NoxAeternum at 6:56 AM on June 27 [2 favorites]
posted by NoxAeternum at 6:56 AM on June 27 [2 favorites]
They gradually improved the effectiveness of their paywall to the extent that I just started ignoring the Post, because I'm sure as shit not going to pay to subscribe. It's proved unproblematic: there's nothing I really need from them. I do subscribe to the games part of the NYT because Ms. Hobnail and I like to see who can solve the crossword the fastest, but I'm not paying to subscribe to the news part of the paper, which YMMV but I find super reactionary.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 6:58 AM on June 27 [3 favorites]
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 6:58 AM on June 27 [3 favorites]
Tightening the paywall was easy, and Ryan did so relatively early in his tenure. The harder part would be converting the free readers of the Post—and there were millions—to subscribers instead of turning them away. Bezos weighed in on this at first, in minor ways—scrutinizing the color of the “Subscribe” buttons and fretting over page load times.
posted by HearHere at 7:03 AM on June 27
posted by HearHere at 7:03 AM on June 27
Yes, I expected the story to be about how this is the fault of The Post being ruined by Bezos. It sounds like he's just been paying them to do good journalism at the expense of profitability, which may not be infinitely sustainable.
But from all the various journalism-adjacent podcasts I listen to, it sounds like the problem is that it's really hard to make journalism profitable in the 21st century. People don't want to pay for the stuff that's expensive, like reporting on war zones. According to them The New York Times has mostly survived due to getting people to pay enough for "desert" (games, culture, tech news) that they can afford to get them to "eat their vegetables" (things that require on the ground reporting and fact checking).
posted by justkevin at 7:03 AM on June 27 [9 favorites]
But from all the various journalism-adjacent podcasts I listen to, it sounds like the problem is that it's really hard to make journalism profitable in the 21st century. People don't want to pay for the stuff that's expensive, like reporting on war zones. According to them The New York Times has mostly survived due to getting people to pay enough for "desert" (games, culture, tech news) that they can afford to get them to "eat their vegetables" (things that require on the ground reporting and fact checking).
posted by justkevin at 7:03 AM on June 27 [9 favorites]
But from all the various journalism-adjacent podcasts I listen to, it sounds like the problem is that it's really hard to make journalism profitable in the 21st century
Agreed -- the underlying problem was that the traditional news business is disappearing. The Times figured out how to become much more than a news organization and it's given them a sustaining business model. The Post had a moment to do that (or something) and failed miserably.
posted by Galvanic at 7:10 AM on June 27 [1 favorite]
Agreed -- the underlying problem was that the traditional news business is disappearing. The Times figured out how to become much more than a news organization and it's given them a sustaining business model. The Post had a moment to do that (or something) and failed miserably.
posted by Galvanic at 7:10 AM on June 27 [1 favorite]
the cute story about the incumbent editor of the post, Baron, slipping new editor hires past Bezos (who thought the Post might have too many editors) by not using the word "editor" and instead substituting "analyst" or something else just reeks of old school newspaper condescension.
I took it more as, newspapers are inclined to call everybody editors, even if they’re not doing what an outsider would assume an editor does. (Partly I think this is to strongly signal to others in the industry that someone is on the editorial/content side, not the business side). Bezos was like, how many people do you need to edit this thing, so they chose titles more understandable to him. It’s kind of like how people joke everyone with any tenure in certain industries is a vice president, even though they don’t all literally act as a surrogate for the corporate president.
It’s hard to know how much to blame Bezos. The article seems to be suggesting acquisitions might have helped, and Bezos may have discouraged those by insisting on approving them and then disappearing from the command chain. There may have been other situations where people waited for a command from Bezos as the tech guy boss, and he waited for ideas from below or just checked out.
posted by smelendez at 7:13 AM on June 27 [2 favorites]
I took it more as, newspapers are inclined to call everybody editors, even if they’re not doing what an outsider would assume an editor does. (Partly I think this is to strongly signal to others in the industry that someone is on the editorial/content side, not the business side). Bezos was like, how many people do you need to edit this thing, so they chose titles more understandable to him. It’s kind of like how people joke everyone with any tenure in certain industries is a vice president, even though they don’t all literally act as a surrogate for the corporate president.
It’s hard to know how much to blame Bezos. The article seems to be suggesting acquisitions might have helped, and Bezos may have discouraged those by insisting on approving them and then disappearing from the command chain. There may have been other situations where people waited for a command from Bezos as the tech guy boss, and he waited for ideas from below or just checked out.
posted by smelendez at 7:13 AM on June 27 [2 favorites]
It's not so much that people "don't want" to pay for the news as a combination of
- it's easier not to pay for the news
- there's a lot more sites to pay for
- the cost is all up front
- the way that ads work has changed
So, when I was a child back before the internet, our news consumption habits varied year to year - most years, we had a subscription to the big local paper and occasionally bought the other big local paper, but then there were a couple of years where my dad would buy the paper every day and bring it home instead. We had a couple of magazine subscriptions, but these changed year to year - we had Newsweek for a couple of years, we had Time for a couple of years, I asked for a gift New Yorker subscription when I was thirteen and got that for my birthday for a while, etc. We also bought some magazines from time to time.
So the takeaway was that our news budget could fairly easily be adjusted up or down, our up front costs could be kept low if needed and it was easy to just say, "I would like this week's X but I'm not going to buy it regularly". Also, the ads were present but not obnoxious, and the ads in the New Yorker in particular were usually interesting to little me. (Advertising success story! Although it would have been more of a success if I had any money to spend.)
Right now, you almost always have to commit a larger sum and there are auto-renews on top of that. It's more complicated though not impossible to maintain that same kind of shifting news mix that was easy to maintain on paper. Ads are much more obnoxious, although I'm sure that if newspapers could have had auto-play videos they would have.
Also, buying the paper/magazines isn't in the same kind of social web - like, my dad stopped by the convenience store for the paper at lunch, that was a regular thing. There's no social habit associated with paying for the WaPo.
Also, there are ten million sites that ask for paid subscriptions and I feel like I personally get paradox-of-choiced where I feel like "I can't afford this one AND that one AND the other one so I will just...read free news".
It's not so much that I'm unwilling to pay for the news, it's that the cognitive burden of paying for the news and managing all the payments is so much greater and it's so much harder to manage the dollar amounts involved that free news becomes extremely attractive.
posted by Frowner at 7:22 AM on June 27 [33 favorites]
- it's easier not to pay for the news
- there's a lot more sites to pay for
- the cost is all up front
- the way that ads work has changed
So, when I was a child back before the internet, our news consumption habits varied year to year - most years, we had a subscription to the big local paper and occasionally bought the other big local paper, but then there were a couple of years where my dad would buy the paper every day and bring it home instead. We had a couple of magazine subscriptions, but these changed year to year - we had Newsweek for a couple of years, we had Time for a couple of years, I asked for a gift New Yorker subscription when I was thirteen and got that for my birthday for a while, etc. We also bought some magazines from time to time.
So the takeaway was that our news budget could fairly easily be adjusted up or down, our up front costs could be kept low if needed and it was easy to just say, "I would like this week's X but I'm not going to buy it regularly". Also, the ads were present but not obnoxious, and the ads in the New Yorker in particular were usually interesting to little me. (Advertising success story! Although it would have been more of a success if I had any money to spend.)
Right now, you almost always have to commit a larger sum and there are auto-renews on top of that. It's more complicated though not impossible to maintain that same kind of shifting news mix that was easy to maintain on paper. Ads are much more obnoxious, although I'm sure that if newspapers could have had auto-play videos they would have.
Also, buying the paper/magazines isn't in the same kind of social web - like, my dad stopped by the convenience store for the paper at lunch, that was a regular thing. There's no social habit associated with paying for the WaPo.
Also, there are ten million sites that ask for paid subscriptions and I feel like I personally get paradox-of-choiced where I feel like "I can't afford this one AND that one AND the other one so I will just...read free news".
It's not so much that I'm unwilling to pay for the news, it's that the cognitive burden of paying for the news and managing all the payments is so much greater and it's so much harder to manage the dollar amounts involved that free news becomes extremely attractive.
posted by Frowner at 7:22 AM on June 27 [33 favorites]
For anyone who is looking for a source of free, high-quality, no-advertisements news,
https://www.abc.net.au/news/justin covers world events, not just Australia.
For example, the most recent two articles published just now are
Chinese Communist Party expels former defence minister over alleged pernicious graft crimes
China's former defence minister Li Shangfu faces prosecution after provoking the ire of Xi Jinping's Communist Party which accuses him of causing enormous damage through political graft crimes
and
Kenya police fire rubber bullets, tear gas at protestors who returned to streets despite bill withdrawal
Kenyan police have fired rubber bullets and tear gas at protesters, as they return to the streets despite President William Ruto scrapping a finance bill following deadly protests across the country this week.
and if you want to skip the Australian content and just see the world news, you can go to
https://www.abc.net.au/news/topic/world-politics
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 7:30 AM on June 27 [9 favorites]
https://www.abc.net.au/news/justin covers world events, not just Australia.
For example, the most recent two articles published just now are
Chinese Communist Party expels former defence minister over alleged pernicious graft crimes
China's former defence minister Li Shangfu faces prosecution after provoking the ire of Xi Jinping's Communist Party which accuses him of causing enormous damage through political graft crimes
and
Kenya police fire rubber bullets, tear gas at protestors who returned to streets despite bill withdrawal
Kenyan police have fired rubber bullets and tear gas at protesters, as they return to the streets despite President William Ruto scrapping a finance bill following deadly protests across the country this week.
and if you want to skip the Australian content and just see the world news, you can go to
https://www.abc.net.au/news/topic/world-politics
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 7:30 AM on June 27 [9 favorites]
https://www.abc.net.au/news/justin covers world events, not just Australia.
I'm not ashamed to admit I was wondering who "Justin" was before clicking that ...
posted by chavenet at 7:44 AM on June 27 [18 favorites]
I'm not ashamed to admit I was wondering who "Justin" was before clicking that ...
posted by chavenet at 7:44 AM on June 27 [18 favorites]
Why would I pay some guys to explain how I'm wrong when all these other dudes will tell me how right I am, for free?
posted by aramaic at 7:59 AM on June 27 [10 favorites]
posted by aramaic at 7:59 AM on June 27 [10 favorites]
- there's a lot more sites to pay for
I've often wondered why there isn't a Journalism Pass that gets you access to a few different publications online, sort of like those ski passes that let you go to a bunch of different mountains. You pay a fee that's more than a subscription to one but less than a subscription to three. Maybe you get unlimited access to all, or maybe you get unlimited access to one preferred and then 20 articles at all the others? Make a couple tiers with more or fewer publications; make a couple subject matter tiers (I don't care about sports, but some people really do).
It's probably impossible to get all these publications to cooperate like that and figure out how to do a revenue share from the subscription.
I'm a journalist and work for lots of the national and international publications you've heard of, but there's no way I can afford to have subscriptions to every publication my work appears in regularly. I pay for a few and then get gift links from editors I work with to see others or sometimes circumvent paywalls. Some sort of mass subscription would allow me to spread money around a bit more than I can now with existing payment models.
posted by msbrauer at 8:01 AM on June 27 [14 favorites]
I've often wondered why there isn't a Journalism Pass that gets you access to a few different publications online, sort of like those ski passes that let you go to a bunch of different mountains. You pay a fee that's more than a subscription to one but less than a subscription to three. Maybe you get unlimited access to all, or maybe you get unlimited access to one preferred and then 20 articles at all the others? Make a couple tiers with more or fewer publications; make a couple subject matter tiers (I don't care about sports, but some people really do).
It's probably impossible to get all these publications to cooperate like that and figure out how to do a revenue share from the subscription.
I'm a journalist and work for lots of the national and international publications you've heard of, but there's no way I can afford to have subscriptions to every publication my work appears in regularly. I pay for a few and then get gift links from editors I work with to see others or sometimes circumvent paywalls. Some sort of mass subscription would allow me to spread money around a bit more than I can now with existing payment models.
posted by msbrauer at 8:01 AM on June 27 [14 favorites]
Also, the ads were present but not obnoxious
Wow, you and I have different memories. I remember Sunday editions of papers that were 80% advertisements, which meant throwing away most of what you'd just brought, and daily papers with a lower but still overwhelming ratio. I remember flipping rapidly through massive sections of magazines because they were all ads. It's different now, but I wouldn't necessarily say it's worse.
posted by Galvanic at 8:04 AM on June 27 [3 favorites]
Wow, you and I have different memories. I remember Sunday editions of papers that were 80% advertisements, which meant throwing away most of what you'd just brought, and daily papers with a lower but still overwhelming ratio. I remember flipping rapidly through massive sections of magazines because they were all ads. It's different now, but I wouldn't necessarily say it's worse.
posted by Galvanic at 8:04 AM on June 27 [3 favorites]
Apple News+ is the mass subscription service you seek.
posted by credulous at 8:06 AM on June 27 [9 favorites]
posted by credulous at 8:06 AM on June 27 [9 favorites]
I began to be low-grade annoyed by WaPo a little over a year ago, then actively worried that I was subsidizing abusive corporate bullshit when the reporters struck. But I really started to lose patience after "the post most" plummeted in quality and became a demographically sensitive chum bucket. The last straw was one morning I opened it and there were like three wrinkle cream clickbait stories in a row and I flew into an insulted rage and dumped my subscription. I subscribed to the Baltimore Banner just to be subscribed to something that was paying people to do actual journalism, plus it was only a buck. But I never read it because, well, I don't live in Baltimore and it has no national or international news. I wish Bezos would fix it, but he seems hell bent on driving it into the ground with his insane "Everything AI" plan. I'ma have to figure something out. The one thing I know for sure is, I will never ever ever ever in a million years give NYT a single thin dime for anything they offer even though they have the only crossword worth doing and "Connections" and the deliciously mindless "Vertex." Never. No money to NYT ever the end.
posted by Don Pepino at 8:17 AM on June 27 [5 favorites]
posted by Don Pepino at 8:17 AM on June 27 [5 favorites]
I'd also like to recommend The Conversation, free articles and analysis by journalists working with university experts.
https://theconversation.com/au
No ads, their funding is via voluntary donations.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 8:22 AM on June 27 [8 favorites]
https://theconversation.com/au
No ads, their funding is via voluntary donations.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 8:22 AM on June 27 [8 favorites]
There is a US version of The Conversation too. (And a UK version.) It's excellent.
The Boston Globe has succeeded in being profitable. I am not sure what their secret sauce is. Their app was an utter disaster until very recently.
posted by rednikki at 8:25 AM on June 27 [2 favorites]
The Boston Globe has succeeded in being profitable. I am not sure what their secret sauce is. Their app was an utter disaster until very recently.
posted by rednikki at 8:25 AM on June 27 [2 favorites]
Apple is not the company I want to own news distribution. Neither is Google. Neither is Amazon. If any of them is doing it, it's not going to make things better. It's going to make things worse.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 8:32 AM on June 27 [6 favorites]
posted by I-Write-Essays at 8:32 AM on June 27 [6 favorites]
Apple News+ is the mass subscription service you seek.
That is pretty neat and a good price, but I don't have any Apple devices.
posted by msbrauer at 8:45 AM on June 27
That is pretty neat and a good price, but I don't have any Apple devices.
posted by msbrauer at 8:45 AM on June 27
The Boston Globe has succeeded in being profitable. I am not sure what their secret sauce is.
The Red Sox, possibly?
posted by DiscourseMarker at 8:59 AM on June 27 [2 favorites]
The Red Sox, possibly?
posted by DiscourseMarker at 8:59 AM on June 27 [2 favorites]
I hate what has happened to the WAPO, but it have hopes, fleeting though they may be... I subscribe to the LA Times (ugh, Billionaire owner but a much better newspaper); the San Diego UT - a near Zine for local matters, the Texas Observer - doing the best coverage of America's most harmful state government and a few more non-profits, because I'm lucky enough to have extra resources.
But I hate the entire existence of the NYT and wish it would die in a fire (or at least become employee owned, or better yet a non-profit).
I know they have fine reporters, but their atrocious nepo-baby owner (damn Bezos is awful, but at least he stole his money directly); there self-appointed beyond arrogant 'mandarins; and their horrendous, incredibly awful politico- media narcism with disgusting reactionary takes from even ostensible 'liberals' like Kristof (ugh) let alone Ross Dougnut and the execrable adulterer Brooks, and all being on permanent $750k sinecures, makes me hate them so damn much.
I'm baffled by their pro-Trump stance. Hey NYT, can you print ONE full freaking non-sense word babble nightmarish speech by the Golden Toilet, maybe without cleaning up the language first? Perhaps a daily update on the Orwellian promises for the nation wide abortion ban (the proposed Alabama pregnancy registry would be a nice thing to cover); perhaps the amounts of rape-pregnancies in the red states?; What about Project 2025? Stephen Millers plans for a nation-wide gestapo to 'round up' undocumented immigrants (and generally make lives miserable for anyone Hispanic)?; the end of climate disaster mitigation efforts; the out and out bribes being solicited from the extaction industry: the end of Nato; the empowering of Russia; the trial for stealing National secrets - guess who Golden Toilet 'sold' those too; his daughter's husband getting a $2B bribe? the endless corruption of the Supreme Court? the Supreme Court just making shit up our of whole clothe (the major questions doctrine is total bullshit); the Supreme Court letting Republican Presidents run amuck while Democratic Presidents getting shut down time and time again (co-equal branch my ass); among about a thousand other things?
The NYT would be demanding Biden and his whole cabinet be thrown into Guantanamo for any one of these things.
Oh yea, wait, lets not cover any of those things when there's a transperson's existence to get aggressively awful about and the existential crises of a couple hundred Columbia student protesting the US funded genocide in Gaza. And well, obviously, we need 4,000 more stories about how Biden's old (unlike the virile, diaper wearing, senile narcissist).
I'm baffled as to why they so seem to want so badly an incompetent, corrupt authoritarian regime under which, traditionally, news media persons are so so screwed. But hey, $$$.
And fucking apologize for Judith Miller and the million Iraqi civilian deaths you helped cause, you tools.
posted by WatTylerJr at 9:50 AM on June 27 [14 favorites]
But I hate the entire existence of the NYT and wish it would die in a fire (or at least become employee owned, or better yet a non-profit).
I know they have fine reporters, but their atrocious nepo-baby owner (damn Bezos is awful, but at least he stole his money directly); there self-appointed beyond arrogant 'mandarins; and their horrendous, incredibly awful politico- media narcism with disgusting reactionary takes from even ostensible 'liberals' like Kristof (ugh) let alone Ross Dougnut and the execrable adulterer Brooks, and all being on permanent $750k sinecures, makes me hate them so damn much.
I'm baffled by their pro-Trump stance. Hey NYT, can you print ONE full freaking non-sense word babble nightmarish speech by the Golden Toilet, maybe without cleaning up the language first? Perhaps a daily update on the Orwellian promises for the nation wide abortion ban (the proposed Alabama pregnancy registry would be a nice thing to cover); perhaps the amounts of rape-pregnancies in the red states?; What about Project 2025? Stephen Millers plans for a nation-wide gestapo to 'round up' undocumented immigrants (and generally make lives miserable for anyone Hispanic)?; the end of climate disaster mitigation efforts; the out and out bribes being solicited from the extaction industry: the end of Nato; the empowering of Russia; the trial for stealing National secrets - guess who Golden Toilet 'sold' those too; his daughter's husband getting a $2B bribe? the endless corruption of the Supreme Court? the Supreme Court just making shit up our of whole clothe (the major questions doctrine is total bullshit); the Supreme Court letting Republican Presidents run amuck while Democratic Presidents getting shut down time and time again (co-equal branch my ass); among about a thousand other things?
The NYT would be demanding Biden and his whole cabinet be thrown into Guantanamo for any one of these things.
Oh yea, wait, lets not cover any of those things when there's a transperson's existence to get aggressively awful about and the existential crises of a couple hundred Columbia student protesting the US funded genocide in Gaza. And well, obviously, we need 4,000 more stories about how Biden's old (unlike the virile, diaper wearing, senile narcissist).
I'm baffled as to why they so seem to want so badly an incompetent, corrupt authoritarian regime under which, traditionally, news media persons are so so screwed. But hey, $$$.
And fucking apologize for Judith Miller and the million Iraqi civilian deaths you helped cause, you tools.
posted by WatTylerJr at 9:50 AM on June 27 [14 favorites]
Really sorry for the rant, I'm just so sick of the national-political-takes complex.
posted by WatTylerJr at 9:50 AM on June 27 [2 favorites]
posted by WatTylerJr at 9:50 AM on June 27 [2 favorites]
I stopped paying for the Times because they're actively hostile to transgender rights and unapologetically supportive of the campaign of ethnic cleansing being carried out by Netanyahu and the IDF.
Finding a new choice if the Post falls is hard. The Guardian is actively hostile to transgender rights. The BBC isn't much better.
Al Jazeera doesn't have very much to say about trans rights, because the issue just isn't really topical for them, but they're certainly not on the side of the angels
posted by constraint at 9:51 AM on June 27 [4 favorites]
Finding a new choice if the Post falls is hard. The Guardian is actively hostile to transgender rights. The BBC isn't much better.
Al Jazeera doesn't have very much to say about trans rights, because the issue just isn't really topical for them, but they're certainly not on the side of the angels
posted by constraint at 9:51 AM on June 27 [4 favorites]
"I've often wondered why there isn't a Journalism Pass that gets you access to a few different publications online, sort of like those ski passes that let you go to a bunch of different mountains", msbrauer asked.
Well, there's Zette, and in Europe, there's Blendle.
posted by Termite at 10:10 AM on June 27 [1 favorite]
Well, there's Zette, and in Europe, there's Blendle.
posted by Termite at 10:10 AM on June 27 [1 favorite]
Finding a new choice if the Post falls is hard. The Guardian is actively hostile to transgender rights. The BBC isn't much better
https://www.abc.net.au/news/topic/lgbt seems good on trans rights, and LGBT issues in general, but it mainly focuses on Australia and South-East Asia.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 10:24 AM on June 27 [1 favorite]
https://www.abc.net.au/news/topic/lgbt seems good on trans rights, and LGBT issues in general, but it mainly focuses on Australia and South-East Asia.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 10:24 AM on June 27 [1 favorite]
I'm baffled as to why they so seem to want so badly an incompetent, corrupt authoritarian regime under which, traditionally, news media persons are so so screwed. But hey, $$$.
Advertising. Give "The Powell movement" series a listen
posted by rough ashlar at 3:48 PM on June 27
Advertising. Give "The Powell movement" series a listen
posted by rough ashlar at 3:48 PM on June 27
Good article.
It does square with what I've heard and believed, with a lot more detail. It doesn't make me like Lewis any more, but I kind of get the tripartite split now from a business sense. If you could elevate the "culture" side to a money making arm of the business that drives subscriptions, why not?
The only problem being no one has figured out how to make actual news profitable in the 21st century.
I'm a bit encouraged by the reports in this piece that Bezos isn't planning to walk away soon; this assertion could totally be spin but, like the newsroom people, I think Bezos ownsership is vastly preferable to a private equity sale.
posted by mark k at 5:11 PM on June 27
It does square with what I've heard and believed, with a lot more detail. It doesn't make me like Lewis any more, but I kind of get the tripartite split now from a business sense. If you could elevate the "culture" side to a money making arm of the business that drives subscriptions, why not?
Philosophically, Ryan believed that the Post’s news coverage should be sustainable on its own, without needing puzzles or product-review sites to turn a profitI totally get that, and I think it's a news-person's way of thinking. And it's important, too, because if those alternate sites are the things that make the profit, you are a prime target for a takeover that guts the news and keeps the product reviews.
The only problem being no one has figured out how to make actual news profitable in the 21st century.
Farhi . . . told me, “I think one of the reasons [Bezos] bought the Post was to prove that he could solve a problem that had eluded other business people: how to make newspapers profitable again.”I believe I posted on an older thread the observation (made by cannier people than me) that the modern billionaire buying newspapers is motivated by exactly this, with the downside that their ego is invested in the enterprise only so long as they think they can make the business work. Once people start considering them doofuses who don't understand the newspaper business, it becomes less appealing to them and it makes sense for them to walk away. If their vanity were invested in actually owning an influential newspaper, getting invited to Beltway parties, and publishing Serious Pieces about global warming or something, they'd be more likely to stick with it for the long haul. Lord knows they have the money.
I'm a bit encouraged by the reports in this piece that Bezos isn't planning to walk away soon; this assertion could totally be spin but, like the newsroom people, I think Bezos ownsership is vastly preferable to a private equity sale.
posted by mark k at 5:11 PM on June 27
I was so upset when El Washington Post, their fantastic Spanish language daily news podcast, got cut at the end of 2022.
It was a really solid daily global news source. An odd little place to find surprisingly good journalism that I came to rely on, because I would hear about things happening in parts of the world that weren't covered by other newspapers or sites I read regularly.
Reading this article, it makes a bit more sense why that happened. I had wondered.
posted by EllaEm at 5:40 PM on June 27 [1 favorite]
It was a really solid daily global news source. An odd little place to find surprisingly good journalism that I came to rely on, because I would hear about things happening in parts of the world that weren't covered by other newspapers or sites I read regularly.
Reading this article, it makes a bit more sense why that happened. I had wondered.
posted by EllaEm at 5:40 PM on June 27 [1 favorite]
> Trump was a gift to the Post, guaranteeing a run of profitability while he was President, and the company completely blew the opportunity to get a running start on remaking itself.
Unfortunately, they’re gonna get a mulligan next January.
posted by paulcole at 12:12 PM on June 29
Unfortunately, they’re gonna get a mulligan next January.
posted by paulcole at 12:12 PM on June 29
People don't want to pay
It's in your self-interest to have a news source you trust and can hold accountable, I figure paying is the way to do that.
Thanks to everyone who shared links for aggregators and news sources they trust.
posted by k3ninho at 3:19 PM on June 29
It's in your self-interest to have a news source you trust and can hold accountable, I figure paying is the way to do that.
Thanks to everyone who shared links for aggregators and news sources they trust.
posted by k3ninho at 3:19 PM on June 29
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Meanwhile, Trump was a gift to the Post, guaranteeing a run of profitability while he was President, and the company completely blew the opportunity to get a running start on remaking itself. So now it's in bad shape and they had to cut meat and bone to sustain themselves (the "Outlook" section and the Sunday magazine). Yes, perhaps Bezos should have been paying more attention as the Post set itself on fire, but perhaps they shouldn't have set themselves on fire?
*the cute story about the incumbent editor of the post, Baron, slipping new editor hires past Bezos (who thought the Post might have too many editors) by not using the word "editor" and instead substituting "analyst" or something else just reeks of old school newspaper condescension. Well, Baron retired before the consequences came due.
posted by Galvanic at 6:45 AM on June 27 [13 favorites]