News is not free

People view their smartphones in subway cars while commuting in the morning. They watch news, play games, or enjoy soap operas they missed last night. Most are free. If someone says he reads news for a fee, people might ask “Are you an idiot?” There is a flurry of news articles available on the Internet, and you are paying to read news?

When people had few materials to read long time ago, some would even underline articles, reading the newspaper. No media is better than the print newspaper when one needs a medium that presents a comprehensive overview of what is happening in today’s world. No other media is as good as the newspaper in terms of data volume, as the newspaper presents all different kinds and aspects of news, ranging from large scale accidents to people in focus.

Broadcast news is biased toward visuals, while the Internet is prone to causing unbalanced uptake of information among the consumers. Despite this, there is prevailing perception that news is free, in tune with the development of the Internet. As news contents that are generated through painstaking efforts are presented for little or no cost, newspapers have been struggling.

This reporter visited leading newspaper companies in the U.S. last week. The U.S. newspaper industry saw their business conditions significantly deteriorate over the past several years in the face of competition with online and mobile telecom. A string of daily newspapers in large cities were closed, and remaining newspapers have dismissed reporters and reduced the number of prints.

On the other hand, a small but important development has also been identified. U.S. readers have started recognizing the value of news and contents. The New York Times had 708,000-strong audience who read online news for fees as of end March. The number of online subscribers who pay fees more than doubled in a matter of one and a half years from 324,000 in September 2011. A source at The New York Times said, “Everything was free on the web, but it cannot be that way forever.”

The Washington Post also started charging fees for online contents in mid-June. One may view up to 20 news articles for free via the computer, mobile phone or tab PC, but should pay a fee to view extra. Readers may say that “People pay a fee to read because they are the (prestigious) New York Times and the Washington Post.” If Korean newspapers have not won that kind of trust and value, the newspapers themselves are to blame.

Then, there is an environment unique to Korea as well. Portals such as Naver or Daum that do not directly generate news are relaying news reports online without reservation by using their monopolistic control of the market. Yonhap News Agency, the semi state-run wire service, also directly entered the news consumer market to compete with newspapers, which are the very subscribers to the agency’s service, a phenomenon that is hard to understand. A situation like this, which is not found in other countries, is severely distorting the online news market in Korea, putting heavy pressure on print newspapers.

Some might say that print newspapers are blaming others for their failures to keep abreast of the shifting of era. But if news articles that are written by reporters who work long hours to gather news and compile are sold for an online advertisement that only cost several dimes, the quality of news will constantly deteriorate. Worse still, news reports that used to be printed on paper have been already getting poorer in quality, softer in seriousness, and more entertaining in nature as they move to digital. In the Internet world, articles on celebrity’s nudity, or who is whose spouse gets far more mouse clicks than important news in politics and economy.

The crisis of press is a crisis of democracy. Were it not for responsible press and media that monitors the government, investigates social issues and corruptions, and discusses the future of our community, democracy cannot be maintained. It is for this reason that the remarks by Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, "the difficulties faced by newspapers will pose a major challenge to U.S. democracy," ring the bell all the more.

Online news should be different from that of print newspapers. It would be desirable for online news to proactively communicate with readers by providing graphic video footages and social network service that newspapers cannot provide. But if news lacks the essence of journalism, which served as the "guiding light of society” for a long time, it cannot be genuine news.

If readers agree upon raison d´être of journalism, it is time that they should be ready to pay for “genuine news.” Fortunately, according to the Reuters Journalism Institute at Oxford University in the U.K., the portion of readers who replied they are reading online news for a fee increased from 9 percent last year to 12 percent this year in the U.S., from 4 percent to 9 percent in the U.K., and from 6 percent to 10 percent in Germany.