Why should audiences pay for news media ?

The answer of this question depends on how useful news is or can be for a person because there are people who don’t watch or interested in news even if they get it for free for those people news is not so important so it’s clear that they are not going to pay for it anyhow and if sometimes they need it they can avail it for free. And again there are also people who are keen to know what’s going around them and their world revolves around the information that happens everyday around them and in every corner of the world, they can watch it for free too but in case if they don’t get it for free they will pay for it. But let’s look at this in another way: the media and news should be free because it’s the right of common people to know everything about the nation and around.

In a democracy media is the fourth pillar and also a connection between the common people and the government so if people choose their government it’s their right to rule their government and if the system is not working as per the people they are free to take steps that are needed to ensure that the government does its work properly. And for common people, the media is the biggest weapon that they can use, then why do they need to pay for it. Isn’t it a way to keep a large number of people away from their rights and unaware about what’s happening around them? Regulating the media is another thing and getting paid information is different. Both of them are incorrect and should not be there.

Let’s try to find out now why should people pay for it :

  • Readers need to pay to read high quality content, fund journalism’s role in society, and support a publication’s mission. With so much free content readily available on the web, publishers have to provide a compelling value proposition that readers believe is worth paying for. Furthermore, readers increasingly see journalism as a critical institution that needs more funding.
  • Some publications employ paywalls to encourage readers to subscribe. Typically, readers are able to read a limited sample of articles before being asked to subscribe for continued access. Readers, however, expect a mutual exchange of value when they pay for content.
  • Getting access to information that most people do not have, additional perks that increased the perceived value of their subscription. This could include benefits such as an ad-free experience, exclusive content, access to a mobile app, or member-only events. We didn’t receive many comments about these specific reasons, so if you voted for them and would like to weigh in, post a comment in the discussion below.

The most common reason why people pay for online news is for access to high quality content from a publication they like. Readers consider news to be high quality if the content isn’t clickbait, the reporting is unbiased, and the publisher is considered trustworthy.

Let us know in the comments what you think about it and should audiences pay for news or not, and is it ethically right to keep audiences away from news if they don’t want to pay.

Written by : Aadya Rani

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