If I was still living in Australia, I'd subscribe to Crikey. It's worth it. I'd think about the AFR too, even though its pricey.
I don't think you can say the same about any of the big metro newspaper websites though - in Australia, New Zealand or anywhere else for that matter.
While they do have some decent journalism, the things that newspapers are best at, the long-form well-researched stories, don't translate well to the internet. It's so much easier to read that material in a printed paper.
And it's usually cheaper too. For some reason, print subscriptions typically sell for less than online ones.
Given most of the material is undifferentiated. And the bulk of international material is available elsewhere, the metro papers will need to invest a lot of money hiring more journalists to dig out relevant local stories if they want to make themselves attractive to digital subscribers. That's unlikely to happen given the current mindset.
alan jones
· 3 months ago
Thanks Bill, really good point about the price of print newspaper subs, they have been very low for a long time and always being offered with discounts. I think/hope the future of long-form investigative journalism is in weekly/monthly print magazines and the video podcast format.
For the regular daily news, I would like to be able to subscribe to the news agencies directly and just cut out the middle man. I can probably assemble my own daily news much more efficiently with a recommendation algorithm and crowd-sourced tagging/rating. And at lower cost than Rupert does by paying a journalist to sit at a news desk.
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I don't think you can say the same about any of the big metro newspaper websites though - in Australia, New Zealand or anywhere else for that matter.
While they do have some decent journalism, the things that newspapers are best at, the long-form well-researched stories, don't translate well to the internet. It's so much easier to read that material in a printed paper.
And it's usually cheaper too. For some reason, print subscriptions typically sell for less than online ones.
Given most of the material is undifferentiated. And the bulk of international material is available elsewhere, the metro papers will need to invest a lot of money hiring more journalists to dig out relevant local stories if they want to make themselves attractive to digital subscribers. That's unlikely to happen given the current mindset.
subs, they have been very low for a long time and always being offered
with discounts. I think/hope the future of long-form investigative
journalism is in weekly/monthly print magazines and the video podcast
format.
For the regular daily news, I would like to be able to subscribe to
the news agencies directly and just cut out the middle man. I can
probably assemble my own daily news much more efficiently with a
recommendation algorithm and crowd-sourced tagging/rating. And at
lower cost than Rupert does by paying a journalist to sit at a news
desk.