
The Independent: first victim of a confounding digital future - nkurz
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/feb/14/independent-first-victim-confounding-digital-future
======
notahacker
The extent to which the Independent was a victim of a digital future is
questionable.

It launched the "i" a tabloid print newspaper from scratch relatively
recently, and the decline in subscribers to the flagship broadsheet was more
or less equalled by the increase in subscribers to the (lower cost) tabloid.
The total readership stayed around the same (unlike all other major UK print
newspapers). In other words, an already low circulation newspaper effectively
cannibalised its own readership. It's an open question whether launching the
"i" saved some of the Independent's editorial or killed it.

------
struct
Out of curiosity I just went to the Indy's website (now its only hope of
survival). Unfortunately, my first thought was "damn, what the hell did I just
click on?" If I want Kanye West, speculation on who'll be the next James Bond,
and Duncan Bannatyne doing... something, that's what the Daily Mail's for. I
really can't see how it has a chance.

~~~
leereeves
[http://independent.co.uk/](http://independent.co.uk/)

There is more than fluff there. For example:

"Suspected Russian air strikes destroy MSF children's hospital - despite so-
called Syria 'ceasefire"

and

"Anger as boycott of Israeli goods to become a criminal offense"

and a lot more.

~~~
notahacker
It's still purposely designed to (i) look like a tabloid (ii) make the
horrible Taboola "promoted content" spam look indistinguishable from the
actual journalism and (iii) promote fluff pieces from the blog of its sister
tabloid more prominently than substantial content from the actual broadsheet.

It's difficult to conclude the people behind their online strategy had any
love for the broadsheet newspaper or any desire to position it as editorially
weighty.

~~~
joshvm
It really does look a _lot_ like Taboola.

Here's their click-bait trash (I have no other words for it, it's not even
good advertising):
[https://s3.amazonaws.com/external_clips/attachments/43217/or...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/external_clips/attachments/43217/original/Screen_Shot_2015-02-04_at_8.10.43_AM.png?1423055474)

And now compare to the Indy homepage... for a paper which has historically
been pro civil liberties and not afraid of going against journalistic norms,
this is a real pity.

~~~
notahacker
If you read an article page with adblocker off, the similarities are even more
mindboggling. The only way you can tell the difference is that the Taboola
links are slightly bigger and more prominently positioned than the links to
the actual articles...

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skoczymroczny
In my opinion, Internet can survive without commercial content. It worked in
the early stages of the Internet, with people providing free services like BBS
etc. for the good of the community. We would just move to more decentralized
storage and communications solutions. We might actually end up even better
than before.

~~~
roel_v
Eh, I don't want to go back to the internet of the late 1990's, which is the
earliest I knew. As much as I dislike some aspects of today's internet, it's
massively better than what we had in the past - both in content and in what
can be done online.

~~~
raddad
<sarcastic_mode> Oh yes, please, more AOL !! </sarcastic_mode> I used to look
forward to what I called the AOL blank floppy of the month (after I formatted
them).

------
raddad
Why couldn't online news operate like HN, people submit and the news get's
upvoted?

Here's an example of member written and submitted news.

[http://www.opednews.com/](http://www.opednews.com/)

Woa !! Google search for member submitted news comes up with 246 million
results !!

[http://bit.ly/1WnYOBW](http://bit.ly/1WnYOBW)

Disclaimer: I have no idea of the quality of any of these member submitted
news pages. They could all be wack jobs. Opednews does have some good writers.

------
leereeves
> Why should great journalism on screen be free when everything else comes at
> a price?

Much of what once came at a price is now available for free (to users). From
sites like YouTube, Coursera, EdX, Skype, open access journals, etc. to
content created and shared for free by millions of people on social media.

Why would news be different?

~~~
a_humean
Because none of that is really free; it is a matter of determining the funding
model. Newspapers haven't quite figured out the model, and during the
transition we could end up losing a number of the 'quality' press and the
institutional memory of journalistic practice that comes with the territory,
which, depending upon your point of view, might be a net loss to society.

For example: Open access journals aren't free. They are paid for through
predominantly public funding and pubic/private grants to researchers and
universities. They are only free in the sense that we are getting rid of the
middle-man (private publishers) that in many cases have increasingly dubious
value (pretty much all of the labour is actually carried out by uncompensated
researchers) and in many are actually parasitic.

~~~
leereeves
A "middle man" isn't of dubious value and parasitic, the role is essential to
connect producer and consumer, whether that be artist to listener, scientist
to reader, teacher to student, or, in the case of news, witness or
spokesperson to the rest of us.

But it's a role increasingly performed by technology, and the traditional
media may be as obsolete now as other middle men.

Of course someone has to pay for that, but the service can be free for many
users, paid for by alternative revenue models.

~~~
a_humean
The journal or the editorial board (staffed by publicly funded academics), as
a connoisseur, is separate from the distribution mechanism that is the private
publisher.

My department at my alam mater edits a top 3 journal in my original
discipline. My alma mater has to buy a subscription for this journal
(including the hardback version that nobody reads) with articles written by
uncompensated academics paid for with public funds; edited, copyedited and
typeset by my uncompensated university's faculty paid for with public funds;
and reviewed anonymously by uncompensated academics paid for with public
funds. What do all of these parties get in exchange that costs the university
library so much? Prestige for the department, university, and individual CVs
for being associated with a top 3 journal in their discipline that happens to
be owned by a private company.

That seems like a parasitic relationship to me when the universities can just
run the open access journal and retain the editorial board for very little by
themselves. This is happening, but it just takes too long for a new open
access journal to build reputation when careers are at stake with being
associated with top journals.

------
Shivetya
well with news aggregators I still lean towards a micro transaction system.
you got to rise to the top to be noticed and that may mean covering areas of
the news many consider beneath the paper in question.

