I wrote a couple years ago about the misleading paywall announcements when three Gannett sites were testing paywalls. Now that Gannett is charging further down that futile path, the Lansing State Journal has perfected the obfuscated paywall announcement.
I’ll break it down by paragraph, describing the content:
- Self-praise.
- Self-praise.
- Self-praise.
- Self-praise.
- Vague promise, never explained, of plans to “expand the way that we deliver information.”
- List of online content newspaper subscribers will get under these changes and of content available to nonsubscribers.
- More self-praise, with promise to deliver “more content on topics you’ve told us you’re passionate about.”
- Promises about frequency and quantity of digital content.
- Promise of letter coming to subscribers and contact information for customer service, President/Publisher Brian Priester and Editor Mickey Hirten (listed as authors of this piece).
- Praise from unnamed folks who “understand” these changes and say it’s “about time.”
That’s it. They never explicitly say you will soon have to pay to read most digital content or tell you how much a digital subscription would cost or whether they will even offer any digital-only subscriptions. Paragraph 9 says customer service will answer questions, presumably better than this shin plaster, which whiffs on most of the 5 W’s and How. They never say how much they are increasing their staff and stopping their frequent staff furloughs to provide all this “more content” (or how else they will provide more content).
To their credit, Priester and Hirten did respond to lots of questions and comments from readers (most of them critical) today. Priester said the Journal will offer a digital-only option. Hirten said pricing hasn’t been worked out yet (the paywall goes up in May). I will email them both, inviting response to this.
A similar announcement, clearly following the same template but using shorter paragraphs, so it’s 13 total, was published by the Port Huron Times Herald. So I’ll also invite a response from Port Huron General Manager Lori Driscoll, listed as the author of that piece. Since Gannett is throwing up paywalls at all of its sites, except USA Today, I presume we’ll see more of these, possibly following the same template (or maybe that was just a Michigan thing). I checked my old newspaper, the Des Moines Register, and did not see such a story today. If you see other Gannett paywall announcements that follow this form (or that address their community more directly and frankly), please share links in the comments.
If I were a Lansing area resident, considering whether to subscribe, I would have the following questions:
- Do you really expect people to pay for content that reports no news in the first four paragraphs and never gets to the point?
- Does paragraph 10 meet your standards for unnamed sources? If not, why don’t you name them?
@stevebuttry That’s terrible. It’s always humorous to read newspapers dance around justifying paywalls.
— Matthew Peters (@schoolofold) April 1, 2012
@stevebuttry As @debarkerinbalto once told news editors: “We’ll refer to the lede on the jump.”
— Erica Smith (@ericasmith) April 1, 2012
Suspense?? MT @stevebuttry: Why would you pay for content from an org (Lansing State Jrnl) that buries leads this deep? on.lsj.com/H85LBT
— Henry M. Lopez (@henrymlopez) April 1, 2012
@stevebuttry The Honolulu @StarAdvertiser did the same thing when it announced its paywall last year
— Adrienne LaFrance (@AdrienneLaF) April 1, 2012
@stevebuttry …Worst April Fools’ joke ever? Heh.
— Gina D. (@designerGNA) April 1, 2012
@designerGNA Great joke on the people who read all the way through, looking for helpful information.
— Steve Buttry (@stevebuttry) April 1, 2012
Quite a lede! RT @stevebuttry: Fixed. & here it is: on.lsj.com/H85LBT RT @dankennedy_nu Link to Lansing paper is botched. @howardowens
— Dan Kennedy (@dankennedy_nu) April 2, 2012
@stevebuttry Well, I guess the first graf qualifies as a lede. Just because it comes first.
— Dan Kennedy (@dankennedy_nu) April 2, 2012
The Lansing website (www.mlive.com/lansing ) of MLive Media Group (the largest media company in Michigan) does not have a pay wall. Nor do any of the affiliated sites. There is too much info and news available online for pay walls to work, in my opinion.
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They will learn that their content is not as unique nor as valuable as they think.
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Maybe the miserable ink-stained wretches who had to write the justification for the pay wall had none and thought all along it was a terrible idea but had it shoved down their throats anyway? Just a theory.
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Not a bad theory. But these are journalists. Can’t they get beyond justification and write a news story that gets to the point?
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http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/article/20120331/NEWS01/303310026/-1/7daysarchives/Big-changes-coming-your-Enquirer
It’s the same template, different Gannett paper…at least they appear to have had the sense NOT to post on April Fool’s Day.
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I read the comments on the LSJ announcement–yikes, not many pats on the back there! Coincidentally, I posted on Monday to my news industry blog (http://BloggingWrites.com): “Paywalls: The Wrong Solution for News” and someone pointed me to your blog, which I am very much enjoying. Nice to see that I have some company in my views (no surprise there; I have been heaping praise on John Paton as well.) David Brauchli of Piano Media (the folks doing the paywall for 9 publications in Slovakia) responded to my post saying ” I should think in the year 2013 it will become increasingly difficult to read good journalism without some sort of payment. And by 2015 I expect all news to be paid for in some fashion or another.” Do you have any comments on the Slovakia experiment, or on David’s comment that “Press+ has implemented 285 pay-walls since its first implementation in Sept. 2011”? Thanks.
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I am not familiar with the Slovakia experiment. And I am very sure that Press+ has helped Journalism Online more than it has helped the newsrooms it has “served.”
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I am able to defeat the paywall on the Tallahassee Democrat by doing a search on the title of the article and then going to the full link provided by the search results.
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