Implications for Journalism

Although online advertising is growing, it is not growing as fast as the use of online media in general. Nor is it generating the truly huge amounts of revenue that traditional media generate.

So the news audience is moving online, sapping users (and thus revenue) from traditional media. But the big dollars aren't necessarily following that audience online.

"The question is not whether online advertising will continue to grow, but whether it will ever be big enough to supply the resources to newsrooms we have come to think of as sufficient for quality journalism -- and whether it will flow to the organizations that produce journalism." (State of the News Media 2005, Online/Economics)

News media are beginning to be profitable, thanks in part to increased ad revenue -- but also because they have cut back on their expenditures.

Online staffs remain tiny compared with those of their parent companies. And the product is increasingly automated, as media organizations rely more and more on wire copy or "repurposed" copy from the parent organization to update the online site. That's a cheap way to go, but it doesn't lead to innovative online journalism.

Clearly, it is going to take more than just a traditional advertising model to support quality online journalism, which is partly the point of the Online Journalism Review article you read.

An earlier article (which you didn't read) from poynter.org offers a range of options for an online media business model that can generate enough revenue for online-only journalism to truly thrive. The options include:

Free content, ad supported, no user registration.
Pro: You draw the biggest audiences.
Con: You give away a valuable, expensive product.

Free content, ad supported, user registration
Pro: Still draw crowds, plus value is implied.
Con: Some users scared off; others give bogus info.

Some free and some paid content, ad supported
Pro: Revenue for expensive-to-produce content.
Con: Few people are willing to buy the good stuff.

Little/no free content, ad and subscriber supported
Pro: If you’re really special, you can make money.
Con: If you’re not really special, you can’t.