While online publications seek to charge for content, Demolition News will remain free.
Under normal circumstances, we prefer not to be self-referencing and self-promoting; we’d rather let our words, photos, video and audio content speak for itself. However, thanks to dinosaurs like Rupert Murdoch and more of his kind, there are moves afoot that will require readers of online publications to part with cold, hard cash to access information that, to date, has been available free-of-charge.
It is a model that both Construction News and Building magazine in the UK are now pursuing; and it won’t end there.
They would have you believe that this charge will be applied to help pay for the hardworking journalists that produce their content. But don’t be fooled.
A huge amount of the content of trade magazines (and, for that matter, newspapers) comes as a direct result of them having received a press release from some third-party. It might be news of a contract award; a contract completion; the appointment of a new director; or the acquisition of a new item of equipment. But regardless of the subject-matter, the fact is this – It did not require a highly-paid journalist to spend countless hours conducting highly technical and prolonged investigations. In fact, in many instances, it required just two minutes of a sub-editor’s time turning someone’s contributed press release into what today passes as industry journalism.
No. What you are paying for is the downturn in on and offline advertising caused by the current global recession; you are paying for the multi-layered management and over-staffing that is typical among traditional paper-based (dead tree) publishing houses; and you are paying for a flawed and outmoded publishing method applied to a modern world that will not wait for and will not pay for information.
Without tooting our own horn, Demolition News produces more than 10 times the level of content of ANY paper-based demolition publication. Our website is updated daily, carries more news, and is not afraid to speak its mind, even if that means causing offense or controversy. And with the exception of our regular guest blogs, every single word you read here is written by just one person from the comfort of his own front room.
Now compare that to a trade magazine that publishes, say, once every two months, runs largely contributed material, and dare not speak out of turn for fear of upsetting a potential advertiser. Typically, such a publication would employ an editor, a reporter, an advertising manager and (perhaps) an advertising salesperson, all overseen by a publisher and, usually, a director of some kind. The magazine would be produced in a plush, air-conditioned office by a team of five or six people, each driving company cars and each with an expensive expense account.
And it’s you, dear reader, that is (or soon will be) paying for all that.
But not at Demolition News. For while we would like to be able to travel the world and swan about overseas demolition sites at someone else’s expense, it is our belief that you – the reader – want up-to-the-minute news, as it happens; you want comment and opinion on the issues impacting upon your business; and you want it free-of-charge.
So we are making a commitment to you, our readers. The content of Demolition News is currently free and that’s the way it’s going to stay.
If you’d like to finance the high-living, company-car-driving, champagne-quaffing, air-conditioned-office lifestyle of traditional publishing houses, you go right ahead; there are plenty of publishers out there that will gladly take your money from you.
But if you want fast, meaningful, FREE and (we hope) well-written journalism and comment, stick around.
