John Stackhouse, an award-winning journalist who has run the Report on Business financial section within The Globe and Mail, was appointed the Globe's new editor-in-chief Monday. He succeeded Edward Greenspon, who held the role for more than seven years.

In his first wave of interviews, Stackhouse has signaled the possibility of charging for the Globe's online content. The organization has tried a few approaches --- a firewall around commentary, for instance --- and now mostly provides the content free online.

But Stackhouse indicated there might be changes in the works.

"We think our journalism has a strong value for our users and we think that audience wants to pay for it directly or indirectly and they understand the value of it, so we just need to continue to find ways to make that transaction work," he told The Canadian Press.  "There's going to be all types of innovations in the years ahead --- whether it's pay-per-use, or pay-per-view or click models - that I think we'd be eager to try out."


 


Comments

David D.

Tue, 26 May 2009 05:08:25

Customers are not going to pay for material they can get elsewhere (i.e. straightforward news reporting). They may pay for opinion, particularly from star columnists, for access to online classifieds, for additional multi-platform materials, archival materials and for the ability to use research materials--appropriately attributed--in their own works. They may also pay for an ad-free version of the paper. However, I can't imagine that anyone's going to pay more than $1.00 per item, or more than $50 per year. I currently subscribe to Salon and have for many years now.

 

Wed, 27 May 2009 10:52:20

But... but... None of the things listed at the end are innovative models. They are things that got tried before and failed. I sincerely hope that Mr. Stackhouse has some better ideas up his sleeve.

Putting stuff behind a paywall has the issue of reducing the thing that sells newspapers to customers - reputation. Reputation grows as more people share your content. Opinion columnists are a dime a dozen - no, a dime a billion - there are millions of people posting their opinions for free.

Salon's "free with ads but pay to make ads go away" understands at least that much.

 



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