They do not know what they are
doing
Traditional newspapers who are trying to prevent themselves from
going under by getting online are find that they are not doing as well as they
hoped.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer folded its print edition last month and
went online only and 30 former journalists from another defunct daily, the Rocky
Mountain News, launched a news website called INDenverTimes.com and set a goal
of attracting 50,000 paying subscribers. Needless to say that neither are
meeting their targets.
INDenverTimes.com announced it had not met its goal of
50,000 paying subscribers and "will not pursue the original business model." In other words 50,000 people would not pay to visit a website for content they could
get for free. In fact only 3,000 seemed to have subscribed.
When the
mainstream press is saying that perhaps the future of online journalism is as
shaky as a Roman disco, most of the online press which is making money also had
a good look at the figures and thought they are doing it all wrong.
For a
start no one will pay for a subscription. Magazines that have tried it have
found their traffic dry up fast. Secondly 30 journalists doing what? Online
magazines and newspapers are profitable when it is a few hardworking hacks
churning out tons of copy at 4am for sod all cash, not to mention a handful of
subs going through their stories for mistakes. (Not really, I don't fix anything, I just go through them so I could poke fun at you guys. sub.ed.)
We imagine that these would
be 30 US hacks who spend all day writing 500 words about themselves and their
families before burying the story in the 12 paragraph. Such precious snowflakes
often charge a bomb for their work and online no one will read past the fifth
paragraph unless they are really bored. Still here? Must be Monday
morning.
SeattlePI.com is a bit more sensible in that it has 20 hacks instead
of the 150 it used to have. However it is watching its online readership fall
to 1.4 million unique users in March from 1.84 million in February and 1.80
million in January. It is losing readers to a rival website operated by the
other daily newspaper in town, The Seattle Times. The rival had 1.5 million
unique users in February but saw its traffic increase to 2.2 million unique
users in March, a gain of 70 percent over a year earlier. (We still better than both of them, with less hacks. sub.ed.)
Either way it is
clear that traditional print media have not got the hang of online media yet and
until they do it is going to be a very bleak time for them.