Guardian and Sunday Times editors debate whether online should be free
Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger and Sunday Times editor John Witherow have gone head to head in a BBC Radio 4 duel over the rights and wrongs of free and paid for journalism models. But who was left standing?
First introduced by Rupert Murdoch at the Wall Street Journal, the paywall is set to cross the Atlantic from June when The Times and The Sunday Times start charging £1 a day, or £2 a week, for online access.
Witherow is a staunch advocate of the move arguing it would be “perilous” to rely solely upon online advertising and states that a reduction in online readership of “easily” 90% or more is a price worth paying to charge users.
“With Twitter the life expectancy of an exclusive is 3 min, so it’s not going to be scoops people pay for,” notes Witherow. Instead reliance will be placed on multimedia, blogs, interactive graphics and lots of “whizz bangery” to tempt dubious punters to part with their cash.
Not all editors are in accord however, The Guardian’s Alan Rusbridger for one has ruled out paywalls vowing to continue the free model, warning that paywalls could see the industry "sleepwalk into oblivion." Refusing to beat around the bush the Guardian editor went on to claim, “if you erect a paywall around your content you kind of go into a vault of darkness.”
He explains: “By erecting a paywall around your content you’re turning your back on openness and collaboration. At present people can come and go as they like picking up stuff on Twitter but by erecting a paywall that linking mechanism breaks down. Only a tiny percentage will pay and what may be a modest sum to someone in Manahattan could be a fortune to someone in India.”
A key problem for the paywall model is that it cannot operate in isolation. With a profusion of free sources on the web such as the BBC’s gargantuan operation why on earth would anyone voluntarily pay? “The BBC is a problem for us”, admits Witherow. “It’s a meal lacking a bit of spice, the Times is a bit of chili spice.”
The future is a wild beast but Rusbridger thinks it “quite possible” that in less than 20 years The Guardian will abandon a print edition and focus solely upon digital. Particularly with the iPad on the scene, a platform on which the Guardian looks “beautiful”. Indeed smitten Rusbridger loves Apple’s device so much he takes it to bed with him (to write emails).
Indeed, in 10 years time The Guardian is pushing to target America, India and South America edition, hoping to become a global presence with Spanish language editions.
Witherow’s 10 month ambitions are rather more modest. “We hope people will sign up in their tens of thousands. We’re going full out to make it work.” As well they might for as Witherow freely admits, there is no plan B.