The Problem with Paid Upgrades to Journalism and Entertainment

NASA recently prepared for a moon launch and I’m ashamed to say I only knew about it because the news announcement was playing at my local sports bar before a baseball game. 

We lament the loss of monoculture or cultural events that capture our unified attention, but how do we get it back?

I have little in common with my people when it comes to consuming entertainment and understanding the news. Even my own husband and I have little crossover in what we watch and read except our favorite sports. 

As most of y’all know, we used to have three networks to watch (ABC, CBS, NBC). Those networks had anchors, like Walter Cronkite and Peter Jennings who shared the news of the world and we started at the same understanding of the facts. Our divergence of opinion still happened, but it was steeped in many of the same truths. 

I am reading some of the best investigative journalism (often on Substack) from people like Jerusalem Desmas at The Argument and from Dan Rather on Steady.  If I wanted to bridge that gap, even with my closest family and friends, we would need to coordinate what we watched and listened to and align on which news and entertainment we would pay for. I'm not on Facebook, only a few of my people are on Substack. That disconnect between free and paid news and entertainment options continues to deepen the divide for our shared reality. How do we start bridging those gaps?

Americans spend an average of 5 hours a day on their smartphones consuming content. A Deloitte report last year estimated that 22% of Americans pay for news. Most newsletters requires payment for the deeper dive. Most streaming and cable services require payment and advertising in their packaging.

I started a spreadsheet that tracked for 30 days news and entertainment I consumed for free, what I paid for, and what I would like to consume but couldn’t because I had reached my budget of $100 per month for subscriptions. Investing in all of those channel would cost more than $300 and take me more than 5 hours a day to consume.

On a recent trip to my hometown of Prineville, Oregon my husband and I did something we rarely do, we listened to something together. It was a thoughtful interview with Don Lemon by Alex Wagner. It tied together many loose ends of how we are perceiving and experiencing this political moment.

Journalists and artists are doing amazing work. Yet, we are often consuming the easiest and least interesting versions of that work with short form content primarily in social channels. 

We don’t have universal standards for what we share for free, what we expect advertising and reporting to fund, and what we pay for ourselves. We are in many ways in a moment of the worst of both worlds. I’m paying for apps and content that both take my money and force me to consume endless sometimes relevant advertising. 

Whoever thought it was a grand idea to include advertising on the screen of a Smart TV when you pause may not have deeply pondered the degradation of the brand experience those ads are forcing. I'm looking at you Progressive. I adore Flo and I love the recent passive Progressive ads. But when you push them on loop and even force me to choose a favorite, those brand messages quit being my favorite.

What’s your free and paid standard for content? Have you asked your leaders to live in the truth of those decisions for even a few weeks to have better understanding of typical consumption of your content? 

Maybe collaboration for reporting and advertising standards should include feedback from those you’re trying to reach with your news and your art. Maybe the metric doesn’t just include the money you’ve extracted from your audience, but the love (or lack of it) they’re experiencing for your brand.

When we establish the goals and objectives for our content, are we establishing how much it will cost both the consumer and the brand?