Onlangs stopte de Britse advocaat Tim Kevan met webloggen voor de gezaghebbende The Times Online. Reden was het feit dat The Times had besloten geen gratis content meer ter beschikking te stellen. Kevan, een gepassioneerd blogger, had weinig behoefte om te werken vanachter een paywall en gooide de handdoek in de ring. Hij blogt nu verder op zijn eigen weblog BabyBarista.com. Wat hem betreft zijn en blijven zijn teksten gratis: hij wil de wereld wat vertellen, niet rijk worden. Aangezien DeJaap ook een groot voorstander is van gratis toegankelijke content en DeJaap-bloggers doorgaans iets met de wereld willen delen, was het niet meer dan logisch dan deze gezaghebbende en populaire Britse blogger uit te nodigen voor een gastblog. Tim Kevan was enthousiast en stuurde het onderstaande stuk in. Wij zijn trots ook internationaal een podium te kunnen bieden.
Blogger Tim Kevan explains why he resigned from The Times over the paywall
Back in early 2007 I started a blog which was a legal comedy about a fictional young barrister (English legal advocate) doing pupillage. I called him BabyBarista which was a play on words based on his first impression being that his coffee-making skills were probably as important to that year as any forensic legal abilities he may have. I wrote it as a blog and was hopeful it might raise a few smiles but in my wildest dreams I hadn’t imagined quite the extraordinary set of circumstances which then unfolded with The Times offering to host the blog and Bloomsbury Publishing of Harry Potter fame offering to make it into a book. Since then the first book came out last August and was originally called BabyBarista and the Art of War. It is being re-issued in August under the new title Law and Disorder and the sequel is due out next May.
New paywall
I was also continuing to publish my blog on The Times until May this year when it became clear that even blogs were going to go behind their new paywall. Now don’t get me wrong. I have absolutely no problem with the decision to start charging. They can do what they like. But I didn’t start my blog for it to be the exclusive preserve of a limited few subscribers. I wrote it to entertain whosoever wishes to read it. So I decided to resign from The Times, a decision I made with regret and despite continuing to be grateful for their having hosted my blog for three years.
The problem was that I simply didn’t think many people would have read my blog stuck not only behind a registration wall but also with a fee for entrance on top of that. I also think that it could have been avoided since there are so many innovative ways of making cash online and the decision to plump for an across-the-board blanket subscription over the whole of their content makes them look like a big lumbering giant, unable to cope with the diversification of the media brought about by online content, blogging, Facebook, Twitter – the list is endless. Canute-like in their determination to stop the tide of free content and using a top down strategy which for the moment at least looks to lack any flexibility. A more sophisticated approach might have been to keep the existing platform and content free but to start charging for different types of premium versions such as iPhone or iPad apps or more in depth and specialist content. This would have maintained the all-important traffic whilst at the same time allowing tem to charge those who had no problem with paying.
Power-hungry ego-maniacs
But even beyond the unlikelihood of people paying for news that they can get elsewhere, the other more general problem is that in my view many writers are not simply driven by money. They are bright enough to earn more elsewhere. They write to get things off their chest, to entertain and to influence. To be a part of the debate. In the game and definitely not sitting on the sidelines failing to be heard. Maybe not quite the vain, power-hungry ego-maniacs that some would have us believe. But they want a voice. They write an article they want people emailing it to their friends, posting it on Facebook or Twitter or linking to it on their blog. Of course people can still put links now. But it seems unlikely they’ll do it so readily when they know that they’re likely to leave many people feeling frustrated at not being able to access the content in one click and for free.
As for me, I set up my own site for the blog and have also been taken on by The Guardian. With over thirty million users a month, not only do they have what I consider to be the most vibrant and innovative online presence of any of the national newspapers but also what in my view is now the very best law section in the country. I’m also particularly impressed by the way they have introduced the idea of partnering with bloggers such as myself whereby I can retain my own website and identity as well working directly with them. It’s a paradigm-shift away from the old-school need for ownership and exclusivity and is definitely the way forward for traditional media to harness the power and energy of the web’s creative forces.
Tim Kevan is a barrister and writer. His first novel BabyBarista and the Art of War (Bloomsbury, 2009) has been described by broadcaster Jeremy Vine as “a wonderful, racing read – well-drawn, smartly plotted and laugh out loud” and by The Times as “a cross between The Talented Mr Ripley, Rumpole and Bridget Jones’s Diary”. He is also a blogger for BabyBarista, BabyBarista at The Guardian and The Barrister Blog. Picture copyright: Jay Stirzaker.
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A more sophisticated approach might have been to keep the existing platform and content free but to start charging for different types of premium versions such as iPhone or iPad apps or more in depth and specialist content. This would have maintained the all-important traffic whilst at the same time allowing tem to charge those who had no problem with paying.
They write to get things off their chest, to entertain and to influence. To be a part of the debate. In the game and definitely not sitting on the sidelines failing to be heard. Maybe not quite the vain, power-hungry ego-maniacs that some would have us believe. But they want a voice. They write an article they want people emailing it to their friends, posting it on Facebook or Twitter or linking to it on their blog.
Hear hear!
I think that Tim is right, here. For some, perhaps stupid, reason many writers just seem to wan to, write. Journalists want to bring the news, other authors want to present a story. The internet has given them the biggest audience they ever wanted, they’re not going to let this one pass.
Perhaps a ‘wall’ will only put more focus on conspiracy blogs etc. that will go on to be free.
What saddens me is how all the early dreams about free information sharing that will revolutionize the world, are being shattered by big (news) corporations.
@Pulpo Denk jij dan dat journalisten minder behoefte hebben aan publiek?
@Linda
It’s not so much that big news corps want to “hide” information – at least I can’t imagine they would want to do that as it goes against the root of what journalism is supposed to be. Their somewhat unlucky decision to put up paywalls lies in the simple fact that they are unable to find a proper business model that will continue to make them money, especially since their printed circulation dwindles and they don´t want to lose (more) money over it.
A second thing is that newspapers and other news media want to ensure that advertisers stick with them, so they need to come up with a system that keeps
news/information/blogs/columns/op-ed pieces exclusively on their own website, i.e. that it doesn’t get reposted all over the net. Content protection – no one wants to see their work stolen in any way.
Also, the free information revolution started when print was invented somewhere in the late Middle Ages, not when the internet was invented in the late twentieth. And with the invention of print came the business models. In the 21st century, and quite surprisingly in our money-driven society, business models lag behind when it comes to keeping up with modern technology. While for some the internet proved to be the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, for others it could mean their (eventual) demise. I’m quite OK with that, evolution for the win and all and if you can’t beat the sands of time you die out but it’s only natural that news media (and other struggling companies and business sectors) try to find new ways to make money in times where these so-called “revolutions of free speech” and “free information” run the game. Even if that means taking a (small) step back by resorting to old ways to make money.
I can definitely understand Tim Kevan’s reasons to leave The Times and I would maybe even do the same if I were him – but Kevan is one man, and a man that doesn’t need the income per se: he works as a lawyer, not as a journalist for The Times, and he profits, I reckon, from the sales of the published blog-in-book-form. The Times is a big company, with different reasons, different models, different goals. They’re just trying to find a way to prolong their own existence. Free blogs will exist as long as people have stories to tell (and in some cases they’re good enough to publish in book form, so you can make some money off of them), but when telling the story is supposed to be your prime source of income, these are trying times. You can’t blame newspapers or other news media for trying. That is, you can’t judge them quite yet. It is not before they struggled and survived, or struggled and disappeared, that you are truly able to judge whether putting up paywalls was a reasonably good, or a terribly stupid thing to do.
@Bart Nijman
You call it “a somewhat unlucky decision” to make readers pay for content. There are different models that can and should be explored; they chose this one.
I never really get why we should take such pity on newspapers. They are corporations, their goal is to make money. Most of them do a shitty job on bringing the news anyway and then they cry over lost readership.
@ Linda
I call it “somewhat unlucky” because even though it hasn’t been proven to be a bad decision, I personally believe that paywalls are not the solution. Yes, there are different models – there’s always another way. But paywalls haven’t proven to lead to the demise of newspapers either.
I do not take pity on newspapers – far from it. If you can’t bend, you break. Goes for everything and everyone as far as I’m concerned – newspapers are no different to me. If corporations fail to make money, they’re doing something wrong. If they can’t fix that, it’s their loss, not mine (or ours).
To say that “most of them do a shitty job [..] anyway” is an entirely different discussion altogether. BP is doing a shitty job at the moment too, but we’re still buying their products. Apparently their business model is waterproof, while the news media’s models are leaking like an oil pipe in the Gulf.
Hmm.. maybe that’s because PB have a “paywall” AND give out Freebees ;)
@Bart Nijman
I’m not buying BP! Agreed on the other points.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. Finding a profitable business model is the million dollar question for Rupert Murdoch and the like.
A news report adds value by checking the facts right and -where possible- supplying a deeper background analysis on the subject matter to the reader according to the elements of the principles of Journalistic codes of ethics.
I would say that news providers could be binary catagorized in an opiniated and a professional/specialized/scientific section.
My impression is that subscribers are willing to pay for the latter and the first could function as a free teaser to attract potential paying customers. A mixed model could be a viable solution.
And last but not least there will always be the independent maverics as Tim. They prove a succesful model of micro-enterprise collaborating with the big corps or amongst each other.
Engels is keimoelluk man!
Steenkolen Engels is goed te doen hoor, Ollie.
Hee Ollie. U leeft nog. Heb je nog gemaild, maar hoorde niets meer. Alles goed?
En als jullie steeds maar ’somewhat unlucky’ zeggen, bedoelen jullie dan ’somewhat unfortunate’?
Ik denk dat ze dan ’somewhat bollocksed’ bedoelen.
Klopt, dat is idd incorrect Engels, nu je het zegt. Maar je zou ook gewoon inhoudelijk kunnen reageren, Quiqui.