Stowe Boyd has it pretty much spot-on in his analysis of the New York Times’ announcement that it’s moving to a freemium model in 2011. Over at Reuters, the ever-eloquent Felix Salmon has his own, equally dark view of the move by the NYT, noting his belief it will do them no end of damage.
In a world where we, the people, are mediating, making, reporting and moderating the news for ourselves and our networks, the heritage media companies are still perceiving themselves as the brokers, or definers, or beneficent providers of news to the masses.
Their mindset has them believing that it’s the stories themselves that are the valuable commodity, rather than the network around the stories, or in some occasional cases, the provision of a story from a particular viewpoint from a particular individual; the latter being rarer, and the network being the thing, so to speak.
As a living example, my news comes to me via web streaming from ABC News Breakfast as I eat my morning meal, and then throughout the day via the many feeds I have carefully organised in Feedly (which sits atop my Google Reader). On top of that, I’d guess 30-50 items a day cross my browser thanks to links from the trusted network of people I listen to and converse with on Twitter and other networks.
This way, I see not only mainstream news, but also perceive the network I connect with and the importance they place on both current events and more eclectic information, whether that be cats, conferences or whatever. That’s where the value lies. In the network.
While it’ll still be a few years yet until the necessary epiphany strikes them, perhaps the user-driven migration away from MSM to a peer-moderated, peer-produced alternative will provide at least a part of the wake-up call to the heritage media organisations. You’d think Rupert would have got it by now…
