Would you pay to get your news off the web?

The Corinthian · 26-02-2015 11:17AM

The Irish Times publishes news? TBH, for international news you're better off going to an international site anyway. For Irish news, there are too many free alternitives and the IT doesn't really add anything that they don't already offer.

That leaves the bulk of what the IT and other Irish publications offer - Opinion. Honestly, I've little interest in reading Fintan O'Toole's self-serving polemics as it is, let alone pay for the honour of doing so.

I get the impression that the IT is still living in the past - where their staff had comfortable well-paid jobs with short hours - in a time where that's no longer realistically viable. It's not just them, but the entire industry has largely been unable to adapt to the Internet; not just print, but even TV has seen this happen.

The IT might get some of the expat market, but - speaking as an expat - I wouldn't hold my breath on how much.

Egginacup · 26-02-2015 11:34AM

Trigger Happy wrote: »

No, me neither. This is their second attempt at moving behind a pay wall. They were paywall on ireland.com up to mid 2008.
Cant see it working this time either.

Ah yes, Ireland.com. I used to read it everyday online back in 1995,96 then they started charging for it. Don't think I've looked at the times since then.

ancapailldorcha · 26-02-2015 11:38AM

Turtwig wrote: »

Can't think of any Irish newspaper I'd pay subscriptions to. They're utter shyte. If the Irish Times improves its quality I may reconsider. Doubt it though. It's in decline and if it can't improve in quality it should be put out to pasture.

Yeah, I'm the same. The BBC is the best option over here and it's free. It's also the thrall of whoever's running things sadly.

I'd be more than happy to pay for an independent service free of advertising and thus beholden to the consumer. Sadly, none of these exist that I know of.

RomanKnows · 26-02-2015 11:50AM

I signed up for a package this morning. While it's far from a flawless publication, it still offers a range of features that I think are worth paying for. They pay for opinion polls to be carried out. Miriam Lord's colour pieces from the Dail are excellent. Rugby and GAA analysis are good.
I feel these are some of the things worth paying for.

I'd rather a Miriam Lord piece than the demented opinions of some angry socialist neckbeard looking at Dail TV waiting for something to be outraged about so he can tweet/blog and update his Facebook status in the hope of whipping his 'followers' into a frenzy. Most frenzy and outrage is more advertising revenue. It's a depressing model of news generation. It's utterly vacuous. It rails against depth, longform pieces, investigations and thorough analysis. It promotes pageviews, parasitic churnlism, and mouth breathers offering their incoherent opinions on everything below the 'story'.

Eugh.

Jinonatron · 26-02-2015 12:05PM

I have to say I will happily pay for quality journalism. The blog and Facebook and joe.ie generation have caused standards of writing to go to ****

RomanKnows · 26-02-2015 12:11PM

Jinonatron wrote: »

I have to say I will happily pay for quality journalism. The blog and Facebook and joe.ie generation have caused standards of writing to go to ****

Self-facilitating media nodes.

keithclancy · 26-02-2015 12:14PM

Sure the Newspapers get most of their news off twitter anyway.

They should be paying us for the revenue they receive in ads

V_Moth · 26-02-2015 12:20PM

RomanKnows wrote: »

Self-facilitating media nodes.

Can't believe that show is 10 years old now.

In the last while, I have found that video sites like Liveleak are far better at covering International news than most news agencies. For example, IS was being regularly mentioned months ahead of any mention in print, while Debaltsevo in the Ukraine came up 2 or 3 days beforehand. You do need a good propaganda filter though.

The_Captain · 26-02-2015 02:00PM

Jinonatron wrote: »

I have to say I will happily pay for quality journalism. The blog and Facebook and joe.ie generation have caused standards of writing to go to ****

I'm with you on this.

Free news is just reposts of randomers tweets and 'click this link to see how Kim Kardashian lost three stone without dieting or exercising'

If that's the standard of reporting you're happy with, fine, go with it. I want to read articles researched and written by actual journalists, not social media managers and redditors

mikom · 26-02-2015 02:04PM

RomanKnows wrote: »

I signed up for a package this morning. While it's far from a flawless publication, it still offers a range of features that I think are worth paying for. They pay for opinion polls to be carried out. Miriam Lord's colour pieces from the Dail are excellent. Rugby and GAA analysis are good.
I feel these are some of the things worth paying for.

I'd rather a Miriam Lord piece than the demented opinions of some angry socialist neckbeard looking at Dail TV waiting for something to be outraged about so he can tweet/blog and update his Facebook status in the hope of whipping his 'followers' into a frenzy. Most frenzy and outrage is more advertising revenue. It's a depressing model of news generation. It's utterly vacuous. It rails against depth, longform pieces, investigations and thorough analysis. It promotes pageviews, parasitic churnlism, and mouth breathers offering their incoherent opinions on everything below the 'story'.

Eugh.

Enjoy paying Breda O'Brien's wages........ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breda_O%27Brien

Would you pay to get your news off the web?

Comments