Can News Websites Successfully Charge for Content?
Will consumers of news on the Internet, the majority of whom have become accustomed to getting content for free, ever choose to pay for their news? That is one of the key issues at stake as newspapers try to find new economic models. One of the latest attempts to charge for news is an e-commerce startup called Journalism Online, which targets the top 10 percent of Web sites’ visitors and believes it can charge $50-$100 per year for content without losing users and advertising. Brian Richardson, head of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications at Washington and Lee University, says suggestions that media have ever been a pay-for-content model are incorrect and that finding effective Internet models has potential perils. On the other hand, he says that the challenges facing newspapers have not deterred students from considering careers in journalism. “What I think is going to happen is that news organizations will have to provide pay-for-content boutique sites as sort of anci
