Build The Wall Analysis

Summary if each section:

Section 1

The newspaper industry can still be saved if all the newspaper providers relaunch with a paywall, therefore the readers would have no choice but to subscribe and the newspaper industry can be saved.

"you must act together"

Section 2

The newspaper industry and the internet can compromise in a way they can both make profit, internet advertisement doesn't bring in much revenue, but a paywall will increase their profits.

Section 3

Newspapers have lost their value in order to attract and entertain readers, to keep them coming back so the newspaper industry does not completely die out.

Section 4

Building a paywall can mean that the industries have more to money to invest in increasing the quality of news, in the newsrooms and surveillance around.

Summary of David Simon's overall argument. 

 David Simon's mostly focused on the financial advantages of having a paywall. He used facts and figures to emphasis his point. one of his main examples was the 'Baltimore sun' which a subscription newspaper is a niche audience, it has only 210,000 readers at $10, making a profit of $2.5 million a year excluding the delivery and the printing cost, suggesting that the paywall is a realistic approach for the newspapers to continue striving. David Simons believes that the only way the newspaper industry can be saved is if all the available newspapers go on the pay wall at the same time, as a result readers would have no choice but to pay the subscription causing all the newspapers to develop and survive together. He talks about the long term effects of having a pay wall such as the increase in the quality of news, the pay wall would allow the newspaper industry to invest more money in hiring staff to get high quality news, which can mean readers get more reliable news. He believes that there is still time for the newspaper to act and save the industry but it needs the commiseration of all newspaper. He thinks that in order for the newspaper industry to stark making money the major company owners should stop being selfish and work together. In addition he believes that the reason the newspaper industry is failing is because of the lack of strategical/logical thinking and the inability to take risk(they are scared of the consequences that may occur as result to putting a pay wall), but if they do take that risk he thinks that the newspaper industry would not just survive but thrive as a business.

Read this response to the article by Dave Levy, criticising and disagreeing with David Simon's viewpoint. What references to new and digital media can you find in Levy's response?

He says the reason that articles are managing is because of the links to social networking sites such as twitter and blogs suggesting its survival is through news and digital media. He concludes putting a pay wall wouldn't result to people linking articles on social media because it would limit the views on their social networking sites as a result causing even more problems for the newspaper industry. Furthermore Dave levy thinks this is a dramatic argument for the solution for the newspaper industry, he thinks that the pay wall will just push their remaining costumes away to their competitors (which allows customers to access articles for free)or find alternative ways online to read articles.

Finally, what is your own opinion? Do you agree that newspapers need to put online content behind a paywall in order for the journalism industry to survive? Would you be willing to pay for news online?

To some extent I agree with what David Simons has to say, I think that having online content behind a pay wall will allow the industry to make more revenue to improve the quality of news we as the consumers are getting. The paywall also allows the journalist which are not credited financially for their hard work to be compensated, however this will only go to plan id their consumers are willing to pay that online subscription. which i personally think is not going to be successful. The consumers are more likely to find alternatives of reading an article (going to newspaper which doesn't have a paywall), which would make the other newspaper industry more successful because advertisers would want to invest in those with more views than one with a niche number of readers. Me personally I wouldn't pay for a subscription if there was other ways of me accessing articles, which leads perfectly on David Simons point of all newspaper content having a paywall on it so readers have no choice but to pay the paywall. so in conclusion i think that newspapers could benefit from a paywall id they all do it together and take the risk together.