I’m willing to pay but not for every website individually. I’d probably only subscribe to a few websites which makes me wonder if his would be a bad thing for some of the websites I check out. But either way, I’ll go on record saying that I am willing to pay… but please, not too much.

How to pay for professional journalists in the internet age is a good question. One problem, once something gets on the web, even if initially behind a “paywall”, there is strong tendency for it to get replicated. Even if copyright is respected, as it always is on the web, there is nothing stopping someone from rewriting a story and posting it on a blog, or on another news site. Using advertising to pay for journalism also has problems, as it creates a conflict of interest for the journalists, in addition to just being plain annoying to the reader. Whenever I have to use a non ABP equipped browser my thankfulness for Firefox and ABP increases.

Paying for the news directly rather than “paying” by consuming ads would go a LONG way towards making journalism more independent. People make a big fuss about liberal bias or conservative bias, but the real truth is that most media has a -sponsor- bias. Sometimes that sponsor bias is ideological, sometimes it is merely profits-driven.
The independence and reliability of even something like NPR has been deeply compromised by their ever-increasing dependence on corporate sponsors and “underwriting” (a fancy word for advertising so that they can continue to pretend to be non-commercial).
Right now, I’m only aware of programs like Democracy Now and the stations which carry it which are purely independent, listener-funded. The problem with this in the short term is that those organizations are openly and unapologetically left-leaning, because they see commercial journalism as being unapologetically right-leaning (whether that is correct or not I won’t say).
If it is possible to construct non-profit/not-for-profit journalism entities which can be purely independent, consumer-funded, this would be HUGE.
The primary problem I see right now is that many (former print) journalists have this -obsession- with print. They are -convinced- for reasons I cannot begin to understand that printing the article on a sheet of paper and delivering it once a day somehow -inherently- makes it better than publishing it to a website. They all -swear- this is true, and none will ever offer a good reason to back it up.
The -best- way to slash over-head and make consumer-funded journalism as realistic as possible is to make it non-profit/not-for-profit and to make it -online only- because this form of distribution is exceptionally cheaper than physical distribution (or even broadcast distribution).
So I would be “willing to pay” if I had assurances from the journalists that they would be willing to cut the costs that need to be cut. And the moment they excepted any form of corporate funding, the deal is off.

The issue of replication on non-pay sources on the web is a complete red herring. There is nothing stopping me right now from typing half of the printed New York Times into my blog with slight re-wordings and claiming it all as my own journalistic work. Just because it is on a website instead of on a printed page does not make it more vulnerable.
Copyright vulnerability is a consequence of -publishing- not of -virtuality-.

Why would you want to do that since the Times is available for free on-line, albeit behind an irritating sign on? Right now there is little incentive for people to copy news items from one place to another, easier just to link to it, if most news ended up being by subscription only, as Rupert Murdoch dreams of, that would change. Your example of typing in the content of the dead tree version of the Times is also a little off, it is much easier to copy things, even with a little rewording thrown in, between two on-line sources.

We do need good journalists. Unfortunately, I think the business model of journalism turns good journalists into bad journalists. Not always, but often. Paying for online access guarantees news stories, but it doesn’t guarantee good journalism.
Having been very close to major news events (two massive fires in California were down the street where I lived), I learned how far, far too often any direct knowledge of a situation reveals how poor the reporting is. I’ve heard this is true in many other cases.
So, those things I don’t know about, I am more than likely getting incomplete or misleading or inflammatory news (in the case of fires often literally so as arsonists get turned on by the coverage).
In earlier eras this was true but news gathering required centralized organizations to gather and then distribute.
Now, however, a news aggregate could depend on first hand witnesses to just about every news event, witnesses who almost certainly would know where they are at. Citizen involvement is often enough to dig deeper into many stories. The communication revolution makes business journalism not only extraneous, but maybe even dangerous as these organizations have to increasingly cut corners and pursue their own dogmas in order to gain enough advertising.
The only downside is we might not get as much news about celebrities. Wait, that’s not a downside.

I couldn’t agree more with Jim Marks. He articulates my sentiment that the exclusive online availability, a de facto open sourcing character to news, self-correcting site would be a start. The reliance on corporate sponsorships is an aging discussion we have to move forward on and find alternatives. Ultimately, people will read what they want to, but the leftist, liberal leanings of the indie newsgroups are not necessarily to be avoided. We need to just enlarge the field.

Personally, regarding news, I’m not willing to pay for information, opinions, wit, populism, or controversy. Those are too abundant to cost much. I AM willing to pay for public truthfulness, proven wisdom, verifiable credibility, and piercing insight.
To the extent that journalists can provide the latter grouping, I will pay for it – and I think most would. Now, I’ll confess I’m a cynic, but I think the disintegration of the news business is largely to do with the fact that it mostly peddles the former. Technology has simply made the mass propagation of information, opinions, etc. abundant, and only a fool would pay a high price for an abundant resource. But I think wisdom, truth, insight, etc. will always be scarce.
And…we could easily be talking about ministry and not journalism.

Hmm … this has me thinking about how much I’d be willing to pay to avoid all the annoying advertising on Beliefnet. Especially the “Skip this ad” page (especially the one with the blaring-volume trailer for “Precious”) which used to be occasional but recently seems to come up about 50% of the time. But also the pop-ups which are often for “you are the millionth visitor” scams.
For the 2 or 3 blogs I read on Beliefnet, it might be worth $20/year to me to avoid this annoyance and the time I waste clicking through the “Skip this ad” page and closing pop-up windows. Maybe even $50, if the fee would also let me avoid having to deal with the capcha. I wonder how that would work out for their economics?

In answer to your question, Scot, I’d be willing to pay a little more for my news. I already do wtih two magazines I particularly like, and I subscribe (free) online to NY Times and get most of my news from NPR (which I also support a bit). The price of good journalism is an excellent discussion question: for those interested, I highly recommend viewing the documentary film “Reporter” about the work of Nicholas Kristof at the NYT. It delves into some of these issues as well.
grace and peace
Andy

I am willing, in principle, to pay a small amount for a few sites. Institution of a pay to see system would dramatically reduce the number of sites I would visit.

I’d like to see new subscription formats for this. Maybe:
GOLD level gets you ALL access and no popups or ads
SILVER level gets you some chunk of access for 48 months
BRONZE level gets you 12 months of access and reduced popups.
OR
All the general public can see the headlines and the teaser info, but if you click past a certain level, it incrementally bills you at PayPal or iTunes for the news you use and care about. People pay for what they read…it will drive how the content is written.

I pay for the online edition of the New York Times, and it has been an amazing resource. The Adobe Air structure it is built on is searchable, nimble, and easy to navigate. As the technology improves, richer features (all of which exceed the traditional paper version), in my mind justify the cost. I share the concern though that increasing demand for free content will erode the quality that is out there. We already see this happening all over the place. How can a democracy fare without access to good information?

I am actually considering whether to pursue a post-doctoral study in Journalism that would enable me to be a journalist specialized in Economics. Its something that I think would give me great satisfaction but like you say the hard times ahead make me doubt pursuing this.
I personally wouldnt subscribe to any newsservice other than to publications like The Economist or The Time.

I think in the digital world, the valued content is/will be analysis and synthesis rather than news gathering. It’s not access to the data as much as what it *means*. The Op-Ed becomes the money maker.

I would be willing to pay for on-line journalism. However, I do agree with: “I AM willing to pay for public truthfulness, proven wisdom, verifiable credibility, and piercing insight.” In other words, we need to demand quality for our money.
Unf., journalism’s woes are not just a matter of the internet but more, imho, the result of overreaching for profit. As long as companies insist on wringing every penny out of reporting, compromised reporting will result. Real reporting means taking time to visit scenes, making repeated follow-up phone calls, searching for non-obvious sources, taking time to think for a few minutes, taking the time to get–and read–another document, allowing the reporter a real vacation once in awhile, encouraging spending time simply talking to people, otherwise known as cultivating sources … and all of this makes it difficult to churn out six, eight, ten stories a week. It means hiring more reporters, which means spending more money … this is one profession where the assembly-line approach kills the golden goose … I think medicine is another, education another … We have to care about more than money.

Just make me watch a 30 second commercial before every article; I’d be okay with that.

I expect them to all go that way eventually. Maybe the first couple of paragraphs would be visible without a login.
There will be a backlash, though. They should never have started giving it away, because people generally don’t like having to pay for what used to be free.
I also think the print publications will need to refocus — maybe more on in-depth stories. Probably weekly instead of daily publication.

Yes, this is the thought I had while listening to NPR in the car the other day. I think it’s critical that we continue to have quality, in-depth journalism and journalists willing to dig beyond the surface to find all the messiness of motives and agendas in order to understand exactly what the stakes are in the superficial, political and sound-bite stances.
I’m willing to support the people who are willing to make their livings doing such quality work with a per article fee, or a journal’s subscription cost on-line.

Frankly Im not willing to pay for most news, because it’s just facts. what Im willing to pay for is analysis–whether conservative or liberal–that is stimulating or provocative. I do pay for several magazines, but the only real loss I see with journalism and newspapers is investigative journalism. That is a loss because investigative journalism speaks truth to power.