Wall-smart?

The debate about the relative merits of introducing paywalls took a new direction this week when the Guardian’s editor-in-chief, Alan Rusbridger waded into the debate when addressing his peers at the 2010 Hugh Cudlipp lecture. Having followed the debate since Rupert Murdoch announced his intention to put a paywall around News International content this summer and the New York Times by 2011, I think Mr Rusbridger has provided the most compelling and measured argument yet.

For me there are three core points:

The media industry needs to be relevant.

To have a blanket or universal paywall around all content makes a huge assumption that the content you create and hold is superior to that found elsewhere. The media needs to be part of the conversation and redefine itself as to what its purpose is, why it exists. If you get time, have a look at the three presentations from the ‘Age of Conversation’ event we ran late last year. Does a universal paywall approach seem the right strategy to engage, inform and influence?

People will pay for content; specialist content.

Clearly professional journalism has a future (alongside amateur or citizen journalism that is) but news content comes from so many sources that I would question why you would pay for news UNLESS a specialist provides some amazing insight/analysis not found elsewhere. Specialist content however will retain its value and so paid access to certain types of content would seem logical.

Identity crisis?

We have been talking about the disintermediation of media for the past few years but the combination of economic and social change and the huge advances and adoption of digital technologies leaves the traditional business model adopted by many media organisations increasingly in question (regardless if they have a strong web presence). More profoundly, it leaves many media organisations scratching their heads as to what they really stand for. How can traditional media comfortably coexist alongside social media outlets and new forms of digital media? Is there an answer or are we in a period of experimentation as Alan R says?

Jeff Jarvis, associate professor and director of the interactive journalism, University of New York’s School of Journalism, may provide some direction when he said ‘Do what you do best and link to the rest.’

It’s clearly going to be an interesting journey over the coming years and nobody knows the answer. But for a man who has never been short of making profound statements (many of which have proved correct, it should be noted), it might just be that Rupert Murdoch’s own words may come back to haunt him, ‘The world is changing very fast. Big will not beat small anymore. It will be the fast beating the slow.’