Last week I went to one of the very useful Gorkana Breakfasts – allowing PRs to put questions to editors of key publications. This time it was a chance to hear from the Wall Street Journal Europe’s renowned Patience Wheatcroft (Ed-in-chief) and Iain Martin (Dep Ed). After talk about the structure of the paper, its audience, content and global capabilities (drawing upon Dow Jones and Financial News) the last 15 minutes was a freestyle Q&A allowing their more subjective opinions to come the fore.
Unsurprisingly, the topics of charging for newspapers came up. The overriding view was that charging for Sunday papers in particular would not generate revenue; with a big question over what value they can offer readers to justify a subscription fee. This led nicely into the Murdoch vs. Google debate and it was interesting to get the viewpoint of journalists on a subscription based publication.
Patience and Iain raised two good points: it’s not unreasonable for newspapers to ask money for the content that they put a lot of time, effort and money into generating; and, if good journalism is to continue, there has to be a compromise.
I can’t help but agree with the latter in particular. I for one won’t want to pay for easy, quick news; content that adds little to my existing knowledge. But I would certainly consider paying for intelligent analysis, properly researched and investigated articles that provide an insight I wouldn’t otherwise be privy too.
However, in this offline and online age, there are many types of reader. Those loyal to one paper alone, dutifully reading it everyday and no doubt happy to pay a subscription as they know they will access it regularly enough to make it worthwhile. But, what about those online readers (me) that like to dip in and out of two or three newspaper sites – picking and choosing articles to read. It will be interesting to see how the subscription models accommodate each type of reader.
On a completely separate note, I noticed that many of the suited & booted PRs who had taken precious time out of their day to come and learn useful information from Patience and Iain who had, in turn, taken precious time out of their day to impart this useful information, couldn’t tear themselves away from their beloved blackberries and merrily emailed their way through the breakfast. I ask; if you are so important that you can’t spend 45 minutes without tapping away, then why bother going at all? I don’t care if you say you can multi-task; it’s just plain rude and self-important.
