I Am No Longer A Subscriber to the Winnipeg Free Press. (I'm a Member)

I’m no longer a subscriber to the Winnipeg Free Press.

No, I didn’t cancel my subscription. My daily (printed) newspaper still comes to my house every day.

Instead of being a subscriber, I’m a member.

That’s what editor Paul Samyn told me, and all the other former subscribers, in a special column in June.

“For the past 144 years, we have looked at our readers as customers,” he wrote.

“But it’s time to see those who invest their time and their dime to read the Free Press as much more than that. We need to treat them as members, because paying to read the Free Press — on a smartphone, desktop, tablet or in print — means you are part of something much bigger than the word 'customer' can capture.”

I was reminded of my changed status today by another note from Paul in the Nov. 5 edition of the Free Press.

In it, Samyn describes the difference between a subscriber and a member.

“At one level, both relationships involve an exchange of money for access to the stories we deliver in print and online,” he writes.

“But when someone is a member, there is a deeper attachment that involves a sense of belonging.”

The Free Press, he admits, hasn’t done a very good job making subscribers—er, members—feel that sense of belonging.

“Unfortunately, we haven’t always done enough to make clear how important the community of readers is to us,” he says.

“For too long, the stories we produced were the end product of our business, not the start of something deeper. If we are going to thrive in this new media environment . . . that has to change. And that change starts now.” 

And what is driving that change? 

Money.

Says Samyn: “Our business model has always depended on revenue from readers, but never more so than today; the dollars that once flowed from advertising have become digital dimes online and mere pennies on mobile.”

Future growth, he says, will come “from the slow but steady uptick in people now paying to read us online.”

The challenge, he adds, is that there is so much information available for free—why pay?

That’s where membership comes in.

According to Samyn, we should want to pay to be members because of the important role the Free Press plays in the community; because we realize quality journalism costs something; and because we “realize a strong community needs a dependable source of focused, independent journalism.”

A few thoughts on Samyn’s comments.

First, I agree with Samyn. Good journalism is important, and someone should pay for it.

Second, the idea that readers are most important to newspapers (or other media) is a new view of that world.

Until now, advertising was the name of the game. That’s how newspapers made their money. Circulation, at best, only managed to pay for the paper and ink.

True, readers and viewers counted insofar as the larger the number, the more they could charge for ads.

But we were otherwise mostly irrelevant to the media experience.

This was something John Stackhouse noted in his book Mass Disruption: Thirty Years on the Frontlines of the Media Revolution.

In the book, he noted that the downturn in advertising has put power into the hands of media consumers—something that not all journalists welcome.

Until now, the media believed that it—not readers, viewers and listeners—should decide what was newsworthy.

What they need to deal with, Stackhouse states, is “the fact they no longer controlled the reading experience.”

That's a big change. Before, the ups-and-downs of circulation might not have mattered much.

But it matters a whole lot more now.

Third, while I agree with Samyn, I’m not so sure a younger generation will.

In a world where news is free, why pay for it?

Plus, their interest in the world might not be high enough to keep the Free Press in business.

That’s what I found out when I asked a class of 20 or so university students how many read the Free Press, in print or online.

Only two hands went up.

If that's the future, the Free Press is in trouble.

Finally, this thought. The Free Press is suddenly a lot like the kind of work I do as a fundraiser.

I spend my time trying to think of ways to connect with donors, to make them feel like they belong.

Some in my international NGO sector will disagree, but the business we are really in is the customer service business. Or, as we call it, donor relations.

If donors don't like how we treat them, or they don't feel they are being heard, they will leave and take their money with them.

And then we will go out of business.

This is something Samyn understands.  

He quotes Jeff Jarvis of the Tow-Knight Centre for Entrepreneurial Journalism at City University New York about the role of the journalists in this new modern news ecosystem:

"If our role as journalists is to help communities better organize their knowledge and themselves, then it is apparent that we are in the service business and that we must draw on many tools, including content, and place value on the relationships we build with members of our communities, which will also take many forms. Thus, we are in the relationship business."

And that’s why I am no longer a subscriber to the Free Press.

I’m a member.