A ‘Free’ Country
Has the UK’s news media extinction begun?
Most of us have bought a magazine or newspaper at some point in our lives, but have you ever thought about paying for news online? Do you have any digital news subscriptions or news apps that weren’t free?
If you live in the UK, the answer is most likely no. This is because according to the 2020 Reuters Institute Digital News Report, the UK is the country with the smallest percentage of people paying for online news.
This surprised me. As a high income economy, you’d think that media companies in the UK would jump at the chance to add paywalls to their news outlets. Is it that in England there is simply unparalleled access to free journalism, or do English people see quality news as a last priority? One thing is clear to me: the media industry has suffered along with every other in the face of Covid 19, and any missed opportunities to gain extra income must have had a detrimental effect.
The Reuters Institute report sheds some light on why the UK is behind other nations in terms of people paying for digital news media, by comparing it to Norway and the US. One of the reasons is that in Norway and the US, many publishers have recently introduced paywalls in response to demand for a distinction between standards of news. For example, after Donald Trump was elected President of the US in 2016 there was a surge in desire for news subscriptions, as people were willing to pay to support liberal publications and ensure they were receiving trustworthy information.
These economies may also have more competitive work industries than the UK; the report indicates that in the US, journalists are encouraged to pay for news subscriptions to get ahead in their careers. In this area there is the greatest disparity between the UK and the US, concerning people’s motivations for subscribing to an online news brand; 13% of people in the US claimed that specific news outlets were important for their work, compared to only 3% in the UK.
I considered my own habits and whether I would be willing to pay for news online. My guilty pleasure is Snapchat, which has been free since it was created in 2011. The Snapchat ‘discover’ section provides a platform for many other news outlets, including Sky News, The Telegraph and The Guardian. Although I use this every day, I wouldn’t be willing to pay a subscription fee for it, since I feel I could get the same information elsewhere online for free.
To investigate further, I asked my Instagram followers whether they would be willing to pay for the ‘discover’ news section on Snapchat. Of the 87 people who voted, there were only three yes votes. I can’t form any conclusions from this since the results were pooled from such a small and homogenous group, but it still supports the idea that people in the UK wouldn’t pay for digital news even if subscriptions did become available.
Unfortunately, the lack of paywalls in the UK’s digital media outlets could have a devastating impact in light of Covid 19. At the start of the pandemic there was a surge in demand for digital news subscriptions as people turned to the internet for updates, however simultaneously local advertising all but vanished. “The revenues don’t make up for the nearly total collapse of local ads,” writes Silverman for Buzzfeed News, coining the Coronavirus a ‘media extinction event’.
Interestingly, Buzzfeed is one of the companies that has suffered. In May the company announced it would close its UK (London-based) operations for “economic and strategic reasons,” and focus on its booming business in America. Other UK publications affected include Time Out and Stylist, two magazines which had to temporarily halt printing. If these outlets were to introduce paywalls now, with the UK still in a financial crisis, they would be unlikely to be successful since people simply do not have the disposable income that they used to have.
So what can we do to support the digital news media industry? Although my thumbs will be itching the open Snapchat, I think it’s important that we start investing time and money into high quality, news-specific media outlets rather than relying on social media. Take a few minutes to browse reputed sources rather than scrolling aimlessly. If you have to forgo buying a newpaper due to being in self-isolation, check if you can pay for a subscription to it online instead. Also try to support specific journalists, to help support quality writing that you are genuinely interested in.
The end is not nigh for the UK’s media; perhaps we just don’t recognise how valuable it is to us. Think about this. If all news sources disappeared overnight, would you pay to have them back? If so, now is the time to act, because once the trusted ones are gone, they might be gone for good.
Thanks for reading!
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52650038
www.digitalnewsreport.org/survey/2020/how-and-why-people-are-paying-for-online-news/
www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/coronavirus-news-industry-layoffs
