You might have heard that paying for good reporting and quality journalism is not easy.
Today many pixels were spilled over Jessica Lessin’s new attempt to do just that. This morning, she launched a long-awaited tech news site called The Information, which will be available to subscribers only for the cost of $39 a month or $399 a year. Jokes of all stripes were made about the wisdom of such an enterprise.
Information wants to be free, but The Information wants to be $39 a month. https://t.co/RhEhg55Gvy
— Nick Turner (@SFNick) December 4, 2013
I’m pleased to announce my new subscription-only news site, “The Veblen Good,” special introductory rate only $945/mo!
— Rusty Foster (@rustyk5) December 4, 2013
CYBER WEDNESDAY DEAL: Pay me $199 per year and I will tell you what they're writing about on @theinformation
— Nicholas Carlson (@nichcarlson) December 4, 2013
Carlson, for his part, went on to write that, though he believes Lessin’s project will most likely end in profit, he himself had no qualms about republishing the work of her reporters and making it freely available to readers via Business Insider. Not everyone found this sentiment charming.
Meanwhile, across the Internet, another fight about journalism, capitalism, and the right to information. Writes The New Inquiry’s Mal Harris:
Taking money from JSTOR and publishing their sponsored content is fucked you guys @Awl
— Mal Harris (@BigMeanInternet) December 4, 2013
Which led Awl editor Choire Sicha to respond:
@BigMeanInternet Oh okay we'll go back to liquor companies and enormous multinational corporation money, so much more ethical.
— Choire (@Choire) December 4, 2013
@BigMeanInternet Or we could have a BAKE SALE, that'll solve capitalism
— Choire (@Choire) December 4, 2013
The ensuing debate focused on the ethics of JSTOR, a company that charges for access to scholarly papers, with Harris arguing that putting academic output behind a paywall is inherently unethical (therefore making it unethical for The Awl to accept money from them) and Sicha arguing that it was universities that “enclose” academic work (and therefore not his problem).
Overall, another day in the how-to-pay-for-news debate.
