It Is Meaningless For News To Be Free Or Not

As Warren Buffett recently bought 26 local newspapers in a row, it is again sparking the debate surrounding free of news.

One online reporter says, “Every Twitter user is potentially a journalist. Every blog author is publisher.” I want to answer it. “Twitter user is not a journalist, bloger is not a author or publisher.” Because they do not make a living on that job. We can make my table or seat at home, but we are not called carpenter.

If one online news company maintains their business by free news, that’s OK. No problem. They have users enough to read the free news, therefore, to attract advertisers.

Since the Internet age, general people are satisfied with free news such as TV news, online news, underground freesheets. Honestly most people do not feel the necessity of high quality news. But leaders, entrepreneurs, professionals, investors, and higher ranks of corporate persons willingly pay higher quality of news. These higher classes understand very well the business logic that good quality news needs efforts, time, and money. Therefore, they do not hesitate to buy quality news.

Now it is meaningless to debate free or not. Charged or free news has its own target. It can be simply defined that charged news is informative one, while free news is publicizing one. Charged news would be economic one, while free news is political, social, or cultural one. If any free news organization can offer free informative economic news, who cares? If any online news companies can offer volunteers’ reports or curated ones free of charge, then visitors’ number reaches the advertisers’ requirements, who picks a fight with you?

It’s about twenty years since the internet news has been serviced normally. Now quitting the exhaustive debate of ‘free news’, each of news companies should develop their own creative biz models and foster management expertise.

A professor predicted that local papers could close in the next 10 years. In fact, among today’s catastrophic changes, the prospect after 10 years should be a kind of deception. Although he might be an expert of technology, his mention is sure to be ignorant of culture and scientific philosophy governing the technology.

Generally seeing, such experts related to internet, IT, communications subtly speak haughtily, while the ones of other scientific and technological fields say carefully. (The end)