I can’t remember the last time I bought a newspaper.
Perhaps it was when I went on a long train journey. But when was that? Trains
have become so expensive that it is nearly always cheaper to fly. I have a
picture of myself at various points in time reading print newspapers and
getting ink on my fingers. I remember how newspapers were enormous and how
there was a knack to folding them so as to make reading manageable. But it
isn’t as if I have stopped reading newspapers. I have a series of bookmarks on
my browser. Each morning there are a few sites I go to. But when did I last pay
to read anything?
There was a time a few years ago when nearly every
newspaper online was free. It all happened rather quickly. Suddenly something
we all used to buy without much thought was free. Perhaps we didn’t buy a
newspaper every day, but we did sometimes. But why pay for something that is
free? It must have been at this point that I ceased to read newspapers made of
actual paper.
But this is our problem really, because nothing is
free. Neither baby boxes nor newspapers are free. Someone has to pay.
Newspapers are companies that pay staff to write.
The people who write are called journalists. This is a job just like any other
job. People may write for a living because they like writing, but they need to
live just like everyone else. Would you do your job for nothing? Perhaps you
would. But could you? How would you pay your bills?
But how do free newspapers make any money to pay
their staff? Well there are adverts. You may notice those things along the top
of the page or down the sides. Perhaps you don’t notice, because you’ve got
some sort of add blocker installed so that you are not bothered by ads. What a
clever idea that is. It’s almost as clever as never watching the advertisements
on free television. Above all we must
make sure that we never pay for anything. That way it’s bound to stay free
forever.
Have you noticed how fewer and fewer online
newspapers are free now? The Times hasn’t been free for quite a while. I can
only read the odd free article, before they start asking me to pay. Fair
enough. But do I pay? No I just don’t read the Times anymore. The Telegraph now
has a subscription model too. I can read quite a bit on the site, but most of
the comment section is behind a paywall. It’s a pity. I rather miss reading
some of my favourite journalists, but do I pay? No. It wouldn’t really be
sensible for me to pay, because I can find more than enough alternatives.
Just occasionally I have a look at the Guardian.
They don’t have a subscription yet, but they have a begging message at the
bottom of each page. No doubt if that doesn’t work they will either go out of
business or find some other way of getting readers to pay.
The problem is that unless it is absolutely vital to
me to read a certain newspaper or commentator I can always find more than
enough alternatives. The BBC will always give me the basic news, dull and
worthy, but more or less accurate. For comment I can go to sites like The
Spectator or Reaction Life. If they started to charge, I could find any number
of other sites.
The begging bowl approach seems to work best where
readers are committed to a cause. I think it must be for this reason that
people sometimes make contributions to Bella Caledonia and Wings over Scotland. What are
they paying for? What would happen if readers didn’t pay?
The great thing about writing for the Internet is
that it is completely free. Anyone can decide to set up an account for nothing.
All they have to do is write. I have not paid one penny for any of my articles
to appear online. Of course some people want to have a more special web address
and that might cost something. But it isn’t necessary. So what are readers
paying for?
The begging bowl approach contains an implicit
threat. If you don’t pay, then I will stop writing. But why should this
motivate me to pay. If the best journalist in Britain told me that if I didn’t
pay he would stop writing, I still wouldn’t pay. I’d just read someone else.
Are Wings and Bella really the best journalists in Britain?
What if there were no-one else who could possibly
match the quality of the journalism written by the journalist asking me to pay?
Under those circumstances I might think of opening my purse. But while I miss
reading, for example, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard and consider him to be uniquely
talented in his account of economics, I can make do without him. Could it be
that Wings and Bella are more unique than him?
I think readers to Wings and Bella are paying because
they think it brings their cause closer. They are paying for independence. It’s
a sort of instalment plan. Keep paying Wings and Bella and in time the cause
will win.
It must be something to do with the way they convert
Pro UK people to support independence. Every time I read the intellectual
heights that Bella reaches I find myself teetering on the edge of joining the
SNP. If only Wings could write more than a paragraph, I would long since have
painted my face blue. Just think I too could be soaring over Scottish politics.
You only have to pay a small subscription and then there are the endless
delights of joining that brave band of winged freedom fighters who bring
independence ever nearer by their moral example.
There is a certain objectivity about Wings over
Scotland. The main task, of course, is to teach readers to think for themselves
and without prejudice. Only in this way are they able to see through the veil
of illusion that is spread by those who are conspiring against Scotland. If
only there had been Wings at each crucial point in Scotland’s history, just
like Blackadder, there would never have been a defeat at Flodden, the Darien
scheme would have been a success and above all there would never have been
those rogues joining us together with the Auld Enemy. Not that we have anything
against this enemy of course. In fact he is our dearest friend and kind
neighbour.
Is it any wonder that people are willing to pay to
see the truth. No-one else is offering this purity of reality. It’s yours for
only a token gift each year. Not only do you get unique wisdom backed with the
most prestigious qualifications, you get hope. It’s almost like going to
church. There is the sermon and then there is the collection. Everyone leaves
with a sense of belonging. Soon we will all reach the Promised Land.
But for how long can all this be kept going? There
is some uncertainty at the moment. I would pay quite a lot to know what Nicola
Sturgeon really thinks and intends to do, but I doubt I will get that even if I were to read the Daily Record. I would like to know for certain that Theresa May
will maintain the firmness of her response to SNP threats. I might even pay for
that knowledge if you had an article beyond the paywall. But again like everyone else I will have to await events. Newspapers are no better at predicting the future than anyone else.
If it becomes clear during the next year or two that there
isn’t going to be Scottish independence any time soon, what happens to those to
who pay to keep the dream alive? What indeed happens to SNP support in general?
Does it depend on the emotion generated in 2014? When you huff and puff into a
yellow balloon with a creepy looking thistle on it there is liable to come a
point when it goes pop.
I’m finding that there is less and less to write
about Scottish politics. We are a single issue sort of place dominated by a single issue party. We wait for the electorate to tire of the SNP and become bothered once more with day to day boring issues. It looks as if Bella recently looked down into the begging bowl and found it looked back at her. It must have seemed too to those given the gift of flight that the dream was so close that they could hardly fail to touch it. "Wings believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us." But then so did Icarus.
I have no special ability to predict the future and so have never expected my palm to be crossed with silver. I am pleased that my job is not journalism. When readers mostly expect to read for free it is unclear to me that such a profession has a future. It is better to have a job that doesn’t depend on generosity, but rather on necessity. It’s more secure to do something that people cannot do without. There will always be new computer games and the necessity for someone to tell the rest of us what they are like. If that doesn’t work out I recommend living in a place where the plumbing is rather old fashioned and the baths so ancient they might have been used by the Romans.
I have no special ability to predict the future and so have never expected my palm to be crossed with silver. I am pleased that my job is not journalism. When readers mostly expect to read for free it is unclear to me that such a profession has a future. It is better to have a job that doesn’t depend on generosity, but rather on necessity. It’s more secure to do something that people cannot do without. There will always be new computer games and the necessity for someone to tell the rest of us what they are like. If that doesn’t work out I recommend living in a place where the plumbing is rather old fashioned and the baths so ancient they might have been used by the Romans.
Keep reading for free. That’s what I do. But if you
like to read good journalists its worth remembering that someone somewhere has
to pay something. I don’t pay to read newspapers. I don’t expect anyone else
to. But it might be worth occasionally clicking the adverts. You don’t have to
actually buy anything, but without the clicks, eventually all newspapers are
either going to end up behind the paywall or else nowhere.