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Few times people have posted about things like FT and Times articles being behind a pay wall
If you register with them you get about 10 articles a month for free, not heaps but fine of all you want to do is read a couple of things.
If it is the Washington Post or NY Times just do an incognito tab in Chrome and when you've read your limit log in again.
FT is easy to get round, you can read any article as long as you go via google search, so just search for the article title and click on the google results link link. A bit tedious, but you can read the whole paper that way.
I keep meaning to write a browser plug in to automate the google re-direct....
BTW this kind of thing is exactly like torrenting movies...
Edit: not the OP of course.
BTW this kind of thing is exactly like torrenting movies…
Not at all, one is illegal and the other is just using their own rules which allow non subscribers to read articles for free.
BTW this kind of thing is exactly like blocking ads.
FTFY.
I don’t want to pay for newspaper articles, certainly not the linked ones.
But then I don’t want to pay for newspapers either, certainly not those with political agendas.
So sod em’ those links some of you post go unread... and that’s fine with me because no doubt somewhere in the article is some biased opinion.
I look forward to the days of independent News reporting with reasoned articles and no biased opinion.
Never happen of course, becuse all they want to do is coerce people and get them to pay for advertising.. and I’m not paying for advertising.
I don’t want to pay for newspaper articles, certainly not the linked ones.
But then I don’t want to pay for newspapers either, certainly not those with political agendas.
So sod em’ those links some of you post go unread… and that’s fine with me because no doubt somewhere in the article is some biased opinion.
If you can't digest something and think about their bias then you are in trouble in this world. The free sources of info these days have some of the most shocking bias and low journalistic standards that it's much worse to trust any of them at times. I would suggest watching the docco that was on Iplayer about reporting trumps first year from inside the NY Times to see how these places work.
I look forward to the days of independent News reporting with reasoned articles and no biased opinion.
No article is, or ever will be, unbiased. You just need to work out what the bias is.
One of the current problems with journalism is that the traditional revenue streams have dried up as virtually everything is published free online, and that has lead to far more low quality journalism devoid of fact checking. Most news organisations now just print the story as directed by the organisation who wants to place it.
Until news and journalism is written entirely by robots there will always be human bias. But intelligent, educated and informed readers can see through this, and perhaps mentally challenging that bias is part of the pleasure. But if you are not smart enough to do that then I understand your frustration.
becuse all they want to do is coerce people and get them to pay for advertising..
Its interesting that print /written journalism is pretty much funded by advertising - even if you buy an actual printed newspaper you're really paying for the print and distribution not the content. But....
Next time you watch Channel 4 News or any documentary or current affairs on C4 or ITV count the ads....
Theres ad breaks - but there's routinely no adverts in them - just trails for other programs. Why do advertisers pay for space in print journalism but actively avoid space around news and factual broadcasting?
I don’t want to pay for newspaper articles, certainly not the linked ones.
Likewise.
Where the subscription model falls down for me is, it assumes I have an interest in the site as a whole. Take the FT as an example; I read an interesting article on there the other day, but my interest in financial news as a whole is precisely zero. I'm never going to subscribe to the FT, so if I get hit with a paywall I'll just go somewhere else. (Amusingly, when I later went back to the same article I got paywalled. Sure, I'm going to pay for an article I've already read once.)
There's a number of sites which fall into this category for me. Now, if there was some sort of inter-site agreement model where I could pay a small monthly fee and get access to a couple of articles on each site across multiple sites then I'd entertain the idea of subscribing to something like that.
then I’d entertain the idea of subscribing to something like that.
If someone gets this to work then they will make a fortune and deservedly so. The problem is getting the businesses to buy into it as well as the inevitable privacy concerns about just how much information they would end up capturing about people. Since, for it to work there could only be a handful of providers covering everything. Since wouldnt be much point signing up for the monthly fee and then finding the FT is with provider x and the economist with provider y.
It would be interesting if there was some kind of app that drew from many sources and "microcharged" for the articles actually read. If I was an app developer that might be something I would work on.
One of the current problems with journalism is that the traditional revenue streams have dried up as virtually everything is published free online,
Thats been an oversight by pretty much all content creators - they started out with an online presence as a free ad-on to promote their conventional output. As the web has become people's primary they're now hamstrung because the value of the product, when accessed that way, has been established as 'free'
I think, with current affairs, subscription falls down as a model as most people consume their news through agregators and links - I probably access more news through links and debates here than through any one news provider.
However although people are accustomed to receiving the content for 'free' very few people receive that content without them (or someone) paying anything.
My broadband contract and mobile package combines costs me around £600 per year.
Thats 4 times what I pay for a license fee - look at all the content that funds
Its equivalent to a sizeable Sky Package - look at all the delicate millionaire footballers and patty-fingered movie-moguls that pays for.
But online non of the money I pay to access content - even If I pay a premium to be able to consume loads of it - finds its way to the content creators
The problem is getting the businesses to buy into it as well as the inevitable privacy concerns about just how much information they would end up capturing about people. Since, for it to work there could only be a handful of providers covering everything.
Buy-in is the big one, yes. Catch-22, you'd need content providers on board to attract customers, and customers signed up to convince providers.
Privacy may be less of an issue, assuming a scrupulous "membership card" provider. Similar cross-site systems already exist, things like OAuth for instance.
I'd pay for the FT, but not at their standard rates which are about twice what it's worth to me.
I guess most FT subscribers are corporate, so the company pays rather than the individual.
The Times will accept about anything, just subscribe on an offer and then when you cancel you can haggle. My brother pays about 1/3 the headline rate for his Times subscription.
But online non of the money I pay to access content finds its way to the content creators
That's a very good point. I wonder if ISPs are missing a trick here.
I'm thinking like Sky's TV model. You pay a basic rate for a standard TV package, or an extra X a month for a bigger bundle of channels, Sky Sports etc. Maybe we could start to see the same with broadband providers, pay an extra sum and get additional premium online content. An extra fiver a month gets you the "news bundle" with subscriptions to the major newspaper sites, sort of thing.
Welcome to my world of print newspaper publishing.
The Times will accept about anything
Money's money, isn't it. There's no physical product so it costs the same to produce and publish an article online whether it's read by one person or a million (bandwidth costs aside). If an extra customer who wouldn't otherwise have paid anything gives them a penny a year, they're still better off than if s/he didn't.
"One of the current problems with journalism is that the traditional revenue streams have dried up as virtually everything is published free online, and that has lead to far more low quality journalism devoid of fact checking. Most news organisations now just print the story as directed by the organisation who wants to place it"
This is a huge problem.
These guys are worth reading if you are inetersted in this area
EDIT and here is the link because obviously it didn't work first time around
I work in local free papers. We don't get to do that, we have to dig for news AND check it as the people featured are local, and if we get it wrong they kick back.
Maybe we could start to see the same with broadband providers, pay an extra sum and get additional premium online content.
I thought either that, or....
I remember there being news about music having identifying code embedded in it as a way fo tracking plays on radio and calculating royalties owed. It meant that any station wouldn't have to have any pre-existing agreement or license - a play could easily be logged (without a human listener having to identify and log it) and resulted in a payment to the publisher. Well - any content could be tagged in the same way. If I read an STW article it wouldn't matter whether it was served to me by the site or any third party. If I watched a film it wouldn't matter if the content was streamed by iPlayer, or youtube or Vimeo or even if it wasn't the rights holder making it available- it passing through the ISP to me would result in a payment from my ISP (while gets loads of my money) to the rights holder.
I work in local free papers. We don’t get to do that, we have to dig for news AND check it as the people featured are local, and if we get it wrong they kick back.
You obviously don't work for my local paper 🙂 They have a habit of relying in 'an un-named source' for their stories. Often that source is sitting on the desk opposite them. 🙂
MSP
It would be interesting if there was some kind of app that drew from many sources and “microcharged” for the articles actually read. If I was an app developer that might be something I would work on.
Like the Brave browser does you mean?
https://brave.com/faq-payments/#what-is-brave-payments
They have a habit of relying in ‘an un-named source’ for their stories.
A Newsquest title?
I look forward to the days of independent News reporting with reasoned articles and no biased opinion.
Never happen of course, becuse all they want to do is coerce people and get them to pay for advertising.. and I’m not paying for advertising.
I understand what you mean, but change won't happen unless we, the customers, show that we want it. Nobody is going to provide independent reporting with no adverts until they are confident that people will pay for it. The only way they will get that confidence is people paying for paywalled content. Current paywalled news may not meet your ideal but it's a step in the right direction compared to advertising and clickbait funded rubbish, so needs to be supported.
No article is, or ever will be, unbiased. You just need to work out what the bias is.
I’m too thick. I need big pictures and type in LARGE letters.
Some posters seem to insinuate I’m incapable of seeing through content to identify the bias, then ignore that bias.
CBA to be honest, like many I assume.
I don’t care about the “whole” newspaper, the articles that are linked ought to be free. If I wanted to read political bias or advertising influenced articles then I would (like many, many on here I assume) would go buy a Newspaper of Old and look at the page with tits on.
As is content in News is just gossip tatted up as “informed” and “independent” and that it should be read as the “truth” When in all honesty the whole model of journalism and selling content is so outdated and outmoded that it barely scratches the surface of “interesting” or “important”
Frankly news reporting has ceased to be unbiased in any form, as proven by the diabolical position the Whailing Daily an TitSun took in Brexit.
For thier stance I now take reporting and news with the same interest as I do having a shit.
For thier stance I now take reporting and news with the same interest as I do having a shit.
Important and a necessary part of a healthy life?
I use Flipboard for all my reading (that isn’t book-based) these days, it aggregates general news, technology, music, science, film, from a whole bunch of sources, like AP, Al Jazeera, Washington Post, NY Times, The Times, The Guardian, Wired, and many others. Some have limits on the number of free items I can read a month, but once I reach my limit I just flip through until I find another article on the same subject the fill in details. Been using it for some years now, and it’s my go-to app on my pad, I’m constantly finding interesting and fascinating stuff that I wouldn’t otherwise come across.
Where the subscription model falls down for me is, it assumes I have an interest in the site as a whole. Take the FT as an example; I read an interesting article on there the other day, but my interest in financial news as a whole is precisely zero. I’m never going to subscribe to the FT, so if I get hit with a paywall I’ll just go somewhere else. (Amusingly, when I later went back to the same article I got paywalled. Sure, I’m going to pay for an article I’ve already read once.)
Which is why I use Flipboard, basically.
Why should news reporting be free? That is the fundamental problem. There is a belief that we should not have to pay for it, but for good news reporting then someone is happy to fund it. Well that person is you - if you read the article then you should pay for it. If the company providing the news wants to bundle it into a package, then that is their business model.
Why should news reporting be free? That is the fundamental problem.
Yep this costs money
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b8lfhc
These are examples of what a good, well funded and independent press has achieved, they have built a trust with people through high standards and being self critical at times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/20/business/media/glenn-thrush-sexual-misconduct.html
There is quality out there and we need to nurture it, feed it, pay it and read it.
Why should news reporting be free?
Articles linked should be free IMO.
In the same way a supermarket uses “loss leaders” to engage customers and entice them to buy more stuff from around the store.
Provide a free link and expect a %age of those readers to hang around and pay for access past thier firewall. Seems reasonable to me, in fact there are Business Models written around such enticements.
I’m certainly not bothered about how much it costs to write an article, I readily turn my nose up at the argument “but we have to pay for the journo, the fixed asset they type on, the overhead of the s****y Office in Wapping or Fleet St or indeed Hertfordshire”
Nope, don't care one iota.
Certainly now Social Media is here and provides the content, the content that is free and easy to access to all. The content that is easy to click on and give an immediate view of what is happening right there at that point in time.
Not some rehash of a Social Media feed then written up and politicised and angled towards the owners of the Media providers own political stance. Nope, sorry...
That model is dead.
I am not knocking “quality” journalism. Informed unbiased literature of heady weight, facts and background, no most certainly there is a market for such tomes. Quality of work such as The Economist is held in high regard as rightly so.
Its the BIG PRINT social and socioeconomic splitters that should fall and crumble.
And thankfully it seems to be going that way.
So, provide free links to an article on other platforms is a given IMO. If it entices readers to hang around and choose to pay for further content then fine.. it’s the readers choice.
On the other hand, not providing free links to articles means you are relying upon a small infinitely decreasing number of readers who won’t pay and your readership model fails in 30yrs.
So, provide free links to an article on other platforms is a given IMO. If it entices readers to hang around and choose to pay for further content then fine.. it’s the readers choice.
Like I pointed out in the first post? How all you have to do is register so they can see how many freebies you have read? Or is registering and saying remember me too hard?
One of the current problems with journalism is that the traditional revenue streams have dried up as virtually everything is published free online,
The FT is very profitable via their subscription model. They have nearly 1m subscribers and made a profit of £5m last year IIRC.
Some posters seem to insinuate I’m incapable of seeing through content to identify the bias, then ignore that bias.
Informed unbiased literature of heady weight, facts and background,
Every considered that the "unbiased" stuff might really just be confirming your own biases and prejudices?
Linked paywall articles are pointless. Immediate back click. It doesn't earn them any money and irritates people more such that they are even less likely to register.
Clickbait that is vaguely readable at least generates ad revenue even, even if it pisses the reader off anyway.
Until news and journalism is written entirely by robots there will always be human bias.
Trinity Mirror local news sites I'm convinced are entirely written by robots now.
Articles linked should be free IMO
Are you saying that the paywall platform should look at the referring site, and if it's not internal to them, it should be free? That's just asking for other platforms to generate links to all the articles and 'steal' the content. It's not going to encourage anyone to invest in writing quality articles.
A better idea is to allow a couple of free pages per day, but as pointed out above, that's easily defeated by using a private browser, unless you have free registration.
I’m certainly not bothered about how much it costs to write an article
You've lost me there. I must be being thick, but if you want quality independent journalism, how do you expect it to be paid for?