Newspreneur is a portmanteau of newspaper and entrepreneur.
Earlier this week, I found a post by a former academic who argued that newspreneurship, meaning the new generation of media companies rising out of the supposed aches of the legacy media, does not necessarily (verbatim word use) equate to true, genuine journalism. Their reasons are that they are often more restricted for readers who have paid a (sometimes hefty) subscription fee.
I found the essay interesting because it wasn’t necessarily dissing them to oblivion, but more so making points, that are truly valid, on why the newer outlets may not be able to be considered true journalism firms.
Especially regarding the subscription fee; in order to do any sort of journalistic work, there does need to be some sort of fee; and the author does acknowledge that. Saying that you do need to charge some sort of fee… if you are in a group and it’s not just you. Alongside how individuals cannot really be journalists because their work can not be readily available to the public for free.
The following is an excerpt from the essay. Modified to include links.
When journalism works in service of the public good, it is freely available to everyone in a public library. A writer like Ken Klippenstein seems faithful to this principle, relying on a patronage model to support his reporting (as “The Contrarian” seems to do). But the vast majority of Hersh’s copy hides behind a paywall, requiring readers to pay roughly 1/3 of an annual New Yorker subscription for his reporting alone. Good for Hersh. Bad for the low-income citizen, who now also needs an internet connection and a digital device to access much of the news. A public library can reasonably keep up with major news publications. But a library cannot subscribe to every newspreneur.
I don’t necessarily disagree with the excerpt, but I don’t believe that the newspreneur should not be able to charge for their work. After all, there are manhours going into it.
Of course this is also forgetting on how the big newspapers got their start. Jones started The New York Times, and Hutkins for The Washington Post. We forget, but these enterprises started by enterprising individuals, and we should not put up gates to prevent others from getting to this stature as well.
The media industry is rapidly changing, and new faces and voices are needed. It does not matter where they are coming from. But if they’re willing to shine a light in our faces, then we should, at the very least, give them a chance like all other businesses, even if it does mean paying at least something.
-z.a.