The deal was expected after CPM’s board of directors approved the acquisition Jan. Accessed May 2, 2023.Chicago Public Media cemented its acquisition of the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper Monday, creating one of the largest nonprofit news organizations in the country. "The Chicago Sun-Times, fitting its new public-media ownership, is dropping its paywall." Nieman Journalism Lab. Retrieved May 2, 2023, from īenton, Joshua. The Chicago Sun-Times, fitting its new public-media ownership, is dropping its paywall. Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, 6 Oct. But if a Sun-Times-style adoption proves out, it’s the sort of thing that will get a lot of people in a lot of communities thinking about copying.īenton, Joshua. Collaborations between public media and local digital media aren’t new. Just about every American metro area of any size has a public radio and/or public TV station. Most importantly, a successful public media-owned Sun-Times could be that rarest of things in local media circa 2022: a replicable business model. The Sun-Times lists 97 people in its newsroom, which, while a fraction of early metro-paper glory, is still substantial enough to make some noise journalistically. (There’s also a “give what you can” option.)Ī free Sun-Times - particularly one that, with a little public radio DNA, could create an interesting mix of tabloid energy and broadsheet gravitas - should probably put a little worry in the Tribune’s hedge fund owners, if only because a free direct alternative offers readers an excuse to stop paying for the Trib, which currently sells its digital subs at $17.33 a month. A higher tier, at $150 a year, throws in an invite to an “exclusive Founding Member event” and an umbrella. (And all those warm feelings.) The annual deal also comes with the promise of a membership card unlocking various community discounts, à la public radio. It comes with all the news content everyone else can get - plus a tote bag. The membership program has a standard tier at $5 a month or $60 a year. ![]() So we’re taking a leap of faith and putting our trust in you. We think that’s a good thing, because if we’re not serving you, we’re not doing our jobs. A membership program connects our revenue model more closely to how well we serve our community, holding us accountable to you, our readers. But we know it’s the right thing to do.įor the Sun-Times’ next chapter to be successful, it is essential for us to be truly open and inclusive so we can tell the stories that matter to all parts of our community. It’s a bold move: Reporting the news is expensive, and the converging market forces of inflation and an anticipated (or possibly already here) recession could further endanger local newsrooms like ours. Instead of a paywall, we are launching a donation-based digital membership program that will allow readers to pay what they can to help us deliver the news you rely on. So today, we are dropping our paywall and making it possible for anyone to read our website for free by providing nothing more than an email address. And we strongly believe that everyone in the Chicago area should have access to the news, features and investigations we produce, regardless of their ability to pay. Our journalists care about your community because it’s our community, too. For stories that celebrate and honor the members of our community, from victories on the field to remembrances of lives well lived. For timely, accurate and fairly reported stories on the issues that matter most. Here’s CEO Nykia Wright, executive editor Jennifer Kho, and chief audience officer Celeste LeCompte (a 2015 Nieman Fellow and an old friend to Nieman Lab):Īs a reader of the Chicago Sun-Times, you turn to us for the news you need to thrive. So its new owners are doing the public-minded thing and dropping the paywall, replacing it with a public-radio-style membership program. ![]() (It also claimed 63,000 daily and 70,000 Sunday print circulation.) The paper’s most recent filing with the Alliance for Audited Media, from March 2021, said the Sun-Times had about 28,000 digital subscribers, a number that doesn’t exactly set the heart afire. ![]() (And let’s not forget the 2014 bitcoin paywall.) In 2018 - not long after being sold for $1 - it followed the newspaper crowd and put up a (non-bitcoin) paywall, at $7.49 a month.Ī paywall can be a tough pitch for a second newspaper in a market still full of relatively robust alternatives. October 28, 2014The Sun-Times survived some, well, unusual leadership through the past few decades - from Rupert Murdoch and Conrad Black to Michael Ferro and whoever came up with this.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |