news:rewired keynote speaker and founder of the Business Desk West Midlands Marc Reeves claims that the newspaper industry is “structurally incapable of adopting the entrepreneurial approach” needed to survive in today’s media environment.
According to Reeves, newspapers are misguidedly thinking of online in terms of a newspaper business model and are hampered by the need to prop up an ailing print product.
In a preview of a speech that he will give to CBI West Midlands on 10 June, the former Birmingham Post editor also turns his attention to the idea of erecting paywalls around newspaper websites:
That’s the answer they cry – make the buggers pay to read us online. They pay for a newspaper, so why not charge them for digital access? Hurrah!
This is such a wrong-headed argument I hardly know where to start to demonstrate to you its folly.
Reeves, who confesses he has firmly tied his colours to the online mast, adds that journalists need to develop a better understanding of the business that supports their work, while big media’s approach to business and not the internet is its biggest challenge. We’ll hear more from Reeves on how this is working for the Business Desk and other niche media at news:rewired.