NPR will be one of the dominant forces in media in ten years because their membership-based funding model is finely tuned to the habits of millennial news consumers. That's the prophecy of Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist and a new media philosopher.I'm willing to bet this will not come true, for the following reasons:
"Only very recently have I been thinking about the successful news organizations, he said, responding to a question from James Fallows at the Washington Ideas Forum. "I have a feeling that membership models and philanthrophy models will be stronger than advertising-supported models, people will be willing to pay for news they can trust."
And trust, he said, "is the new black."
- Craigslist is free, which is why it is so popular, and it is not a model for a for-pay NPR.
- NPR, like PBS, is irreversibly liberal in an increasingly conservative country.
- NPR is not "for pay," it lives off public funding and donations.
- NPR is not trusted. See Point 2.
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Why pay for news when such excellent blogs as Legal Insurrection exist?
ReplyDelete(Shameless plug for Prof. Jacobson :) )
I'll bet the house on the over at 2020.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't trust NPR with a wet paper bag.
ReplyDeleteSeveral years ago I had what NPR likes to self-congratulatory call a “driveway moment” while listening to them (the better to know your enemy).
ReplyDeleteThey were breathlessly reporting on some new study that suggested that private schools were no better at educating children than public schools. They had ‘leveled’ the data to remove things private schools have over public schools. Things such as mandatory parent participation, standards of behavior, ‘default’ advantages because the kids typically have educated parents, etc.
They failed to even notice that those reasons are frequently the primary reason parents want their kids in private school. During the interview the researcher even went so far as to say that the private school’s ability to remove chronically disruptive children was somehow a bad thing.
In the end all that was proven was that when you remove all the advantages a private school has over a public school it turns out that they’re about equivalent.
This circular reasoning was lost on the researcher and the NPR interviewer.
So my driveway moment was spent with me in my driveway…shouting at the radio. Such is the result of most NPR news programming. I eventually had to quit listening because I was grinding my teeth to nubs and my blood pressure was out of control.
The only people I know who listen to NPR don't work for a living and don't buy anything with their own money.
ReplyDeleteSo without multiple bailouts, how's that going to work, exactly?
Maybe there's a chance of this happening - I'm sure they are picking up market share with Al Franken's Air America off the air now. Lets see, gaining 100% of Air America's 0% market share must equal something like 0%.
ReplyDeleteSurprised Craig Newmark has time to ponder this kind of thing - I thought he would be much busier trying to do a workaround on those law enforcement complaints about Craigslist facilitating sex for hire.
That is what I consider a boat-load of WISHFUL - THINKING!
ReplyDeleteNPR a dominant force! Please!
Hey! NPR's not that bad. Just turn your BS Deflector [TM] to 11 and some of the stories are actually pretty interesting.
ReplyDeleteWhen the Main Stream Media learns to have a discussion with the American people and not just talk down to them, then the American public will tune in.
ReplyDeleteUntil NPR and the rest of the MSM learn this, their viewship and ultimately, their profitability, will decline into oblivion.