The changing face of photography: why paywalls won’t work
In a recent blog post, David Campbell makes a strong argument against the use of paywalls for online media. You should go read his post in full (and the series of posts it is a part of) to digest all the details, but in summary he’s saying that paywalls will not solve the problems they’re intended to solve.
He says:
“photographers who believe that their practice is defined by an editorial paymaster committed to documentary work are going to have a very hard time”
And why? Because, Campbell argues, that paymaster will no longer be in a position to pay like he used to. No paywall is ever going to offset the money lost from disappearing advertisers; nor is a set of paywalls going to save an entire media business like Rupert Murdoch’s. It might save a handful of individual titles, but not the whole business.
Indeed, says Campbell, Murdoch’s entire approach is flawed:
“He is trying to change the terms of the public debate on the web in order to ‘call time on free distribution.’ But that is an even more impossible task, because free distribution is both the intrinsic architecture and great virtue of the web.
So how does this change photography and photojournalism? Fundamentally, according to Campbell.
“Nobody should pin their career hopes on (paywalls) enabling a rosy future that will replicate a lost and largely mythic past.”
The lost past is the reader – editor – contributor triangle. Money no longer necessarily flows from the reader to the editor, and will no longer necessarily flow from the editor to contributor either. It’s time to accept that, embrace it, and base business models upon it. Murdoch is trying to turn his back on it all, and stick to the income streams he’s stuck to for decades.
According to David Campbell, though, the successful photojournalist of the future will be someone who:
“someone who embraces the logic of the web’s ecology, using the ease of publication, distribution and circulation to construct and connect with a community of interest around their projects and their practice.”
It’s all very challenging and thought-provoking stuff, and a highly recommended read. Views from Photocine News readers, both for and against, are welcomed.
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