[HN Gopher] Wired is dropping paywalls for FOIA-based reporting....
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Wired is dropping paywalls for FOIA-based reporting. Others should
follow
Author : healsdata
Score : 411 points
Date : 2025-03-18 13:21 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (freedom.press)
(TXT) w3m dump (freedom.press)
| davidw wrote:
| Among many other things that are seeing titanic shifts right now
| is the media landscape. Wired has been doing some excellent
| reporting on a lot of recent events while you have storied
| outfits like the Washington Post muzzled by their owner.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _while you have storied outfits like the Washington Post
| muzzled by their owner_
|
| I guess it shouldn't still be surprising that a joint-stock
| company with diverse owners outperforms a closely-held company
| again, but here I am, genuinely surprised. (I previously
| thought a rich patron could stand up to power. But Kay Graham
| was special. Bezos is another coward.)
| vkou wrote:
| A rich patron can stand up to power when power plays by the
| rules.
|
| This regime does not. It is above the law. If you're
| interested in the endgame of this sort of thing, just look at
| Russia. No shortage of rich people there, but not a lot of
| them interested in pushing back.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _A rich patron can stand up to power when power plays by
| the rules_
|
| A rich person _has_ power. That means getting to set your
| own rules, to an extent. Bezos could have challenged Trump,
| or at least drawn a line in the sand around press freedom
| and democratic institutions. He didn 't. None of them did.
| I don't know to whom we rotate power, but it's clear that
| there needs to be a dilution of it from Silicon Valley.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Do you think the Newhouses are more reliable owners than Bezos?
|
| And they might be. Journalism _is_ their business. If Bezos had
| to choose between Amazon and WaPo, he 'd choose Amazon.
| roughly wrote:
| > If Bezos had to choose between Amazon and WaPo, he'd choose
| Amazon.
|
| And did.
| MrMcCall wrote:
| So many have been bought up by GOP fascististas.
|
| "Follow the money." is sound advice, but always remember
| that:
|
| "Shit rolls downhill."
| xori wrote:
| Well they aren't in Canada for me yet, but that's probably
| because we aren't the public that needs to know.
| richwater wrote:
| > And yes, publishers rely on subscriptions to cover those costs
| -- which will only increase as a result of anti-press attacks by
| the Trump administration.
|
| [citation needed].
|
| I wonder how many people browse the Internet with an ad blocker
| while simultaneously calling for paywalled news content to be
| free?
|
| It's quite the entitlement to say that organizations should forgo
| revenue when, if people actually cared, they could easily replace
| 1 of 10 streaming subscriptions with a newspaper/journalism
| subscription.
|
| This article is backed with no data beyond just shaming
| organizations for not fulfilling what freedom.press defines as
| "civic duty".
| dgfitz wrote:
| A website partially dropped their paywall, and they attribute
| blame.
|
| The hell do I care? Now I can read parts of their website
| without archive hacks.
| watwut wrote:
| I get your argument, but people I know in real life do not have
| 10 streaming subscriptions. Most people I know have 1 or 2.
| richwater wrote:
| While 10 is certainly an exaggeration, I think the core
| thesis of "most consumers just don't value quality journalism
| and thus spend their money elsewhere" is valid.
| KolmogorovComp wrote:
| > Some may argue that, from a business standpoint, not charging
| for stories primarily relying on public records automatically
| means fewer subscriptions and therefore less revenue (...) >
| while some readers might not subscribe to outlets that give away
| some of their best journalism for free, *it's just as possible
| that readers will recognize this sacrifice* and reward these
| outlets with more traffic and subscriptions in the long run.
|
| (emphasis is mine)
|
| Not, the outcimes are not as likely. This is the same argument
| that switching to foss and donation-based model would not result
| in income-loss compared to traditional business model.
|
| We know from experience it does not financially work for a (very)
| large majority of products.
|
| I laud Wired's initiative but I hope they have considered it as a
| net-loss of income.
| jampekka wrote:
| Most major subscription newspapers in Finland have a model
| where "important" news articles are free but for feature
| stories and such a subscription is needed. Having specific
| articles free would be something similar.
|
| The free news articles are not out of the goodness of the
| shareholders. Most newspapers (Wired included) run ads, and
| still get ad revenue from the free stories and with them get to
| somewhat compete with fully ad funded alternatives.
| stereolambda wrote:
| I wonder how many subscriptions are bought for outlets which
| have no outside-internet recognition or freely accessible
| content, where all you can see is a paywall.
|
| If I'm gonna subscribe to your magazine, the main things I want
| to know is quality of reporting and if I can cancel without
| hassle (due to tactics sadly employed by some titles). I will
| not just believe you have good stories if I can't see them.
| This is not the level of trust we give nowadays. And magazine
| and newspaper subscriptions are not some pressing need that I
| can't forgo.
|
| For some of these I could just buy one paper issue to try out
| (technically even for foreign titles), but otherwise how would
| I know. And no, with a book I would buy, I know I can expect
| some level of quality because of the publisher, and I can read
| what it is about in the backcover. Worst case scenario, I get
| 250 pages of poor entertainment to read when very bored in a
| train. It's not the same with getting access to someone's sorry
| content farm.
| jampekka wrote:
| Wired seems to have a few free stories before the paywall
| rises, i.e. a "soft paywall".
| xnx wrote:
| I'm surprised FOIA hasn't been "deleted" yet.
| ale42 wrote:
| I'm pretty sure they already thought about it. By the way, the
| FOIA process certainly has a cost which needs to be optimized
| out...
| Kapura wrote:
| What are you suggesting?
| None4U wrote:
| That some may consider FOIA a source of "government
| inefficiency", perhaps
| dionian wrote:
| I've not noticed this
| jancsika wrote:
| > By the way, the FOIA process certainly has a cost which
| needs to be optimized out...
|
| Meaning 1: Republicans might very well try to get rid of a
| democratic check on power under the cover of "reducing waste"
| and that is bad and I don't want it to happen.
|
| Meaning 2: I believe the government works essentially like a
| compiler and therefore optimizing out anything in the name of
| efficiency is actually a "good thing."
|
| I can't follow the "be generous" rule of HN because I cannot
| tell from your comment which one you mean. Could you clarify?
|
| Edit: maybe more important-- I'm not sure which
| interpretation HN would take to be generous here.
| mnkv wrote:
| I think it's pretty obvious it's 1. Given the recent huge,
| clearly politically-motivated cuts from the current
| administration, it feels pretty likely that FOIA could be
| disrupted under the guise of "cost-saving".
|
| And I think you're supposed to be generous to the
| commenter, not the current administration ;)
| ale42 wrote:
| It was meaning 1, although I understand it was possibly not
| totally obvious after re-reading my comment.
| techright75 wrote:
| Ah yes, more fearmongering by the far left members of Hacker
| News.
| qingcharles wrote:
| You're not paranoid if you're right.
| ale42 wrote:
| I'm not far left, not even close...
| Imnimo wrote:
| >But while some readers might not subscribe to outlets that give
| away some of their best journalism for free, it's just as
| possible that readers will recognize this sacrifice and reward
| these outlets with more traffic and subscriptions in the long
| run.
|
| I just don't see how you can think this given the trends of
| subscriber counts to various outlets over the last few decades.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| Exactly.
|
| We should all be grateful to any journalist doing this kind of
| reporting. And we should reward them with money.
|
| I just don't see people doing more than paying lipservice to
| this idea.
| tempfile wrote:
| > I just don't see people doing more than paying lipservice
| to this idea.
|
| Speak for yourself.
| i80and wrote:
| I just subscribed as a WIRED Superfan because of this
| 0xCMP wrote:
| To be fair some people genuinely do subscribe for this, but
| it's best to think of it as a justification to do the "right
| thing".
| freeAgent wrote:
| Just yesterday I started paying for a Tailscale subscription
| even though I don't even fully utilize what they provide for
| free. I just find it valuable and am glad I have the option and
| ability to support them. I don't think most people do things
| like that, but some do. We'll definitely see how it works out
| for Wired (I'm already a subscriber there, too, due to great
| coverage/work).
| rebeccaskinner wrote:
| I just subscribed. They had already been on my radar as having
| done some good reporting lately, and this was a good nudge to
| get a subscription.
|
| Along very similar lines I'm a longtime subscriber to lwn.net
| even though realistically I tend to catch up there every couple
| of months and am almost always reading content that is free by
| that point. I find the service they provide valuable and the
| subscription fee very reasonable and I'm happy to support it.
| karmelapple wrote:
| I subscribed a few weeks ago, and this has solidified it for at
| least another year.
| dehrmann wrote:
| This is old, old data, but Conde Nast supposedly does better
| than you'd expect because they own prestige magazine brands
| people actually pay for.
| andrewvc wrote:
| > But while some readers might not subscribe to outlets that give
| away some of their best journalism for free, it's just as
| possible that readers will recognize this sacrifice and reward
| these outlets with more traffic and subscriptions in the long
| run.
|
| In other words we have a wild guess this will be sustainable for
| news organizations.
|
| Stories like this are always popular on HN but I'm convinced get
| upvoted because people agree with the idea of more free stuff.
| I'm skeptical that this will improve the quality of reporting in
| an already under resourced journalistic environment. Maybe it's a
| good idea, but it's hardly obvious.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it's just as possible that readers will recognize this
| sacrifice and reward these outlets with more traffic and
| subscriptions in the long run_
|
| These hybrid models don't work. Depend entirely on generosity,
| _e.g._ Wikipedia. Sell your damn product. Or sell your readers
| ' eyeballs.
|
| I've hands down seen the best journalism from categories 1 and
| 2: folks focussed on the mission or confident enough in their
| quality to paywall everything. I've rarely seen it from 3. I've
| almost never seen it from those who try mixing. (The exception
| being those who sell traditional, _i.e._ non-targeted, ads.)
| johnmaguire wrote:
| There's the other hybrid approach of depending on government
| funding and generosity (i.e. NPR.) Though I'm not sure that's
| a great option in this climate either.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _other hybrid approach of depending on government funding
| and generosity (i.e. NPR.)_
|
| About 30%, and indirectly at that: "eligible public radio
| stations may apply to receive annual grants directly from
| the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)" [1].
|
| [1] https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-
| finance...
| gowld wrote:
| "Government funding" is generosity.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| Yes and no - while it's taxpayer funded, you don't really
| have a choice as to whether your tax dollars fund it or
| not. I would argue that generosity requires intent.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _Depend entirely on generosity, e.g. Wikipedia._
|
| So... quite profitable?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AFundraising_statis.
| ..
| derektank wrote:
| Unless you're already a name brand (e.g. the NYT, a handful
| of very high profile columnists, etc.) you can't just assume
| people will know the value of your work. You have to
| demonstrate it in some way. Providing half your content for
| free while keeping half behind a paywall seems like a
| perfectly reasonable strategy to address this discoverability
| problem.
|
| I can't speak to the broader effectiveness of this strategy,
| but I know that I have paid to see some of a writer's
| paywalled work after first being exposed to their free
| content.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Unless you 're already a name brand (e.g. the NYT, a
| handful of very high profile columnists, etc.) you can't
| just assume people will know the value of your work_
|
| Sure. This problem is conserved across private enterprise.
|
| > _providing half your content for free while keeping half
| behind a paywall seems like a perfectly reasonable strategy
| to address this discoverability problem_
|
| The _New York Times_ runs a 12% operating margin [1].
| Giving away half their content without sacrificing quality
| would require incurring the same 88C/ of costs for 50C/ of
| revenue; it just doesn 't work. Sales and marketing is
| usually a single-digit percent of revenue for a reason [2].
|
| The partial-reveal strategy particularly fails for news
| because I can now decide which articles I'll run through
| the Internet Archive. If you paywall everything, that's too
| tedious.
|
| [1] https://nytco-assets.nytimes.com/2024/11/Q324-Press-
| Release-...
|
| [2] https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-
| content/uploads/2024/11/BFI_WP_2...
| gowld wrote:
| NYT literally gives away some content for free and
| charges for the rest.
|
| NYT doesn't charge per article; they charge for tiers of
| access.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _NYT literally gives away some content for free and
| charges for the rest_
|
| Yes. Not half.
| troyvit wrote:
| > You have to demonstrate it in some way. Providing half
| your content for free while keeping half behind a paywall
| seems like a perfectly reasonable strategy to address this
| discoverability problem.
|
| I feel like 404media is doing a good job at that. They
| irritate me sometimes but they break a lot of great news
| with a tiny staff and have an indomitable social media
| presence (at least on bluesky) that really gets people
| talking about them. Don't get me wrong, I'll never pay for
| their work because I feel like they get a little user
| hostile sometimes[1], but people less curmudgeonly probably
| are subscribing.
|
| [1] https://www.404media.co/we-dont-want-your-password-3/
| roughly wrote:
| > they break a lot of great news with a tiny staff <...>
| I'll never pay for their work because I feel like they
| get a little user hostile sometimes
|
| Y'all choose the weirdest hills to die on.
| karmelapple wrote:
| I have subscribed to them for other reasons recently, and this
| only solidifies my subscription to remain for another year.
|
| I sure don't work for anything close to Wired or their parent
| organization, but if you want good journalism, support it with
| your dollars. A year's subscription is less than a nice dinner
| out (or even a not-so-nice dinner out!).
| duxup wrote:
| The users of the internet want things for free and then we
| complain when we don't get it.... Or when someone else pays for
| it... :(
| scarecrowbob wrote:
| A lot of my paid media consumption comes from podcasts which
| create enough free content to keep me engaged but which offer
| enough extra content that I want to pay for that content.
|
| At the scale of "small but functionally profitable podcasts" it
| seems to be working, so it's not like that model can't work out
| of hand.
|
| I am not sure it will work for print publishing, but it seems
| to be working for the patreon-funded folks.
| JohnTHaller wrote:
| I subscribed to Wired a few weeks ago specifically because they
| were doing good reporting on things that other media was
| letting slid.
| subsubzero wrote:
| I'm fine with news outlets having paywalls to keep the lights on
| and provide great journalism. Where I wish things would change is
| having paywalls on articles years old that are no longer relevant
| to todays news.
| isaacremuant wrote:
| I just wish that those that suddenly recognize the importance of
| freedom will remember next time they get their preferred
| government in power instead of simply pretending "freedumbs" are
| a partisan issue and defending authoritarianism when it suits
| them.
|
| I don't have much hope, though. The partisan hypocrisy and
| inconsistency in red and blue cuts deep.
| username4567 wrote:
| I have subscribed to multiple news organizations this year
| because I think it's important to support the type reporting they
| are doing right now. I don't give money to every source that is
| doing great investigative work but there's at least more of my
| money paying for news.
| rectang wrote:
| The suitable rejoinder to every tired old "somebody else's
| content needs to be given away" argument is the Content Creator's
| Creed from Goodfellas (NSFW):
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c3bhh8fqYs
|
| As if journalism hasn't been a shrinking industry for decades.
| "But surely FOIA articles are different and are the perfect loss
| leader". No they are not -- if they were you'd make a mint
| researching, writing and publishing FOIA articles for free rather
| than insisting that others do it.
| roughly wrote:
| The original talk for that creed, a classic:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U
| johnshades wrote:
| 404 media was doing this b4 it was 'wired' :}
| MrMcCall wrote:
| They have been doing really impressive work for some years now.
|
| "There's God's side and the other side." --Katt Williams
| newsclues wrote:
| Interesting.
|
| I like the idea of journalism having open data/facts, but am
| happy if the "story" is behind the paywall.
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