The Great Unbundling Will Not Lead to Cultural Impoverishment

While reading the chapter entitled “The Great Unbundling,” I was struck by how similar the fears Nicholas Carr outlines are to the ones Jean-Noel Jeanneney expresses in his book, “Google and the Myth of Universal Knowledge.” Both men see the increasing choice the internet allows the consumer to make about what content he consumes as inherently threatening to the richness and depth of our culture. Carr quickly qualifies the benefit of having more choice in deciding what to read watch, and listen to by telling us that “[m]ore choices don’t necessarily mean better choices.” (151) Carr contends that the deterioration in the quality of available media will occur as content is unbundled. In the example he uses, newspapers, readers now click links to individual articles online. Because online newspapers’ revenue comes from advertisements posted next to each article, each article will have to carry its weight by individually bringing in enough readers who will increase advertisement revenue. Carr claims that the articles that are going to bring in the most revenue will be ones about consumer products, that then encourage readers to click on a link to that same product, advertised on the side. These fluff piece articles about consumer goods will therefore come to dominate deeply researched, investigative journalism pieces about malaria in Africa. (154-55) Although Carr frames his argument in terms of bundling, in effect he’s lamenting the same thing as Jeanneney: As soon as technology allows the unsophisticated masses to quickly and efficiently access exactly the material they want, culture is reduced to a mediocre, bland, contentless mess. As Carr says, it was already a long shot that a serious piece about government corruption or malaria in Africa would attract a lot of readers. (155) Perhaps because he is American, and knows such solutions are much less likely to be embraced in America, Carr doesn’t propose solving this problem by designing the internet so that people are coerced into accessing what is “good for them,” he just let’s us know that it’s equally likely that “[c]ultural impoverishment” is our future. (167)
However, I question Carr’s prediction that “cultural impoverishment” is our future, mainly because I was not convinced by his description of how news sources will only be able to get value from consumer product articles that lead to a large number of clicks on the product link. I agree that people will increasingly read their news on the internet. Each succeeding generation is increasingly comfortable with the internet, and views it as the “normal” way to get news. Even the nostalgia for hard copies will disappear, because people will no longer remember hard copies as the way news was served up in their childhood. While there will remain some benefits to hard copies such as portability--being able to read them at the breakfast table or on the subway--the benefits to online news are great. One, you don’t have to wash your hands after you read news online. Two, most people have busy schedules and don’t have time to read the newspaper over a leisurely breakfast. Where they do have time to read is at their computer at work. So Carr is likely right in his prediction that hard copy subscriptions will continue to decline.
But is Carr right that only specialized newspapers like the Wall Street Journal are able to charge anything for their online editions? (154) Carr states this as fact, with no support, perhaps because this assumption about newspapers’ business models has never been tested. The New York Times, arguably the most reputable news source in the country, went straight to offering free online content. Yes, they experimented with making their opinion pieces subscription only, but the failure of that experiment may be because what readers value about the New York Times is their investigative reporting, not the opinions of some random people. Perhaps the New York Times and other newspapers who do important investigative journalism, did put themselves in a bind they cannot get out of by conditioning their readers to expect free online content. One can argue that if the New York times started charging for online subscriptions, they would alienate their readers who expect free content, and those readers would simply try to find the same news at other free sources elsewhere on the internet. But if a handful of papers offer investigative journalism of a depth and quality that can’t be found elsewhere, then its seems likely that people will in fact pay for online subscriptions. After all, they paid for hard copy subscriptions. Carr himself says that “[w]hen bundled into a print edition, hard journalism can add considerably to the overall value of a newspaper. Not least, it can raise the prestige of the paper, making it more attractive to subscribers and advertisers.” (155) Even with its content online, people still think of the New York Times as an entity, with a reputation for a certain kind of news based on the articles they post online, so there’s no reason why hard journalism posted on the online version will not add the same value to the newspaper by raising the prestige and making it more attractive to subscribers and advertisers. And there’s no reason why the New York Times cannot capitalize on that reputation and prestige by charging for online subscriptions.
The real downfall of newspapers like the New York Times may come from doing exactly what Carr thinks they must do to survive--having freelancers dash off reviews of high-definition television sets. (155) Newspapers do not have a monopoly on certain types of information now, and need to adjust accordingly. Yes, they used to be able to make easy money through classifieds because they were the only way for individuals to distribute information to a large audience. Their reviews of movies, theatre and other entertainment also attracted a lot of readers, because there weren’t many other sources for reviews. Now individuals post reviews online by the thousands. The New York Times may no longer be able to compete when it comes to fluff. I don’t need to read a review for a consumer good in The New York Times. Its reputation and prestige do not make me think that their review will be any more valuable or accurate than one on a consumer products site that specializes in that kind of thing. In fact, I’d prefer to read a review elsewhere where more information has been synthesized, instead of the single opinion of some freelancer for the New York Times. If instead, the New York Times realizes that its real value comes from its reputation for hard journalism and high standards, and focuses on exploiting its superiority in that field, then it will stand out in the market, and get readers. It may lose the readers from the hard copy subscription days who bought the paper only to read the classifieds, but it needs to realize it already largely lost those readers to websites that do a better job providing that information anyway.
Jeanneney might argue that there is no market for investigative journalism if people aren’t forced to consume it. Carr would argue that these articles are too expensive to produce without subsidies from fluff pieces. I believe the internet has already shown that neither is true. For example, talkingpointsmemo.com has produced amazing quality journalism on national news, with a small staff, free content, and advertisements on the side. Increasingly websites like talkingpointsmemo.com will step in to provide real news if the New York Times goes in the direction Carr suggests in order to increase advertisement revenues. Maybe we need to accept that the market for hard journalism is smaller than Jeanneney or Carr would ideally like, but it exists, and will continue to be served by someone. However, that someone may not be the New York Times if it tries to hold on to its former glory as a bundled provider of all information.

Comments

[Ed Cottrell]

Interesting post, Claire – these aren’t exactly the things that jumped out at me from the book, which makes your comments intriguing. If I read your comments correctly, you are making two central points.

First, you argue that many publications will be unable to charge for their reporting, editorials, or even fluff pieces, but that a few bastions of quality reporting may be able to do so. I agree with the first part of this argument, but I think history is proving the second idea is untenable. The New York Times, after all, is a business and focused on the bottom line, but it does not charge for access to its “normal” content. Once upon a time, yes, they made an effort to charge for some content, but I honestly cannot recall the last time I encountered a fee-based portion of the nytimes.com website. In fact, it’s increasingly rare that I even have to login to view the site’s contents. There are only a few possible reasons for this. The New York Times could have decided that the news should be free and that an advertising-supported site is more egalitarian and fair than a fee-based site. This seems extremely unlikely. See, e.g., http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/822775.html. The more likely possibility is that the Times is more profitable when supported by contextual advertising than by subscriptions. The problem - which I think Carr was getting at - is that the overwhelming majority of news published or read will be read for free, and that this will dumb down and polarize the news, even if a tiny group of publishers can continue to charge for access profitably. We might worry that the readers of such magazines will be an atypical elite, at least in some respect. Maybe Carr's right - on this point - and this is a bad thing?

Your second point, as I read it, was that news providers need not be the globe-trotting behemoths of days past, anymore, as specialty or alternative news sources can fill the void for free. You cited, appropriately, talkingpointsmemo.com as one good provider of national news. The problem, as I see it, is that international news is necessarily very expensive and difficult to come by, especially when dealing with oppressive regimes. As an American who was abroad on September 11, 2001, I don't feel comfortable with the independent media's ability to get information out globally quickly - it was precisely the largest organizations that were able to inform people similarly situated to myself. I then witnessed flooding which killed almost 10,000 people in North Africa, where few international correspondents were located, and discovered that almost nobody in the United States was acquainted with those events. I am surely biased by these experiences, but I think Carr has a point in saying that competition in some types of reporting will be largely lost, if current trends continue.

[Ross Tucker]

I think an additional point bears mentioning: the fact that a lot of news is outsourced by newspapers anyway. The Associated Press provides much of the national and international coverage that local newspapers provides (there have been or are other syndicates such as Reuters and the United Press). I read the New York Times online and also get the Chicago Tribune print edition. Frequently I see stories that I first read in the New York Times in the Tribune a few days later. I imagine that it is only the larger newspapers that have had foreign correspondents. If the AP has been providing all this coverage anyway, we should be looking at what is happening to the AP -- do they have just one correspondent for southeast Asian instead of the five they might have had before?