Todos los diarios van a ser gratuitos

Trends in Newsrooms 2006, es el segundo informe anual del World Editors Forum. Según su promoción, enviada a los socios, responde a interesantes y apremiantes preguntas que se plantean los responsables editoriales en la era digital

En el capítulo “Will All News be Free?” (¿Será gratuita toda la información?), el especialista en diarios gratuitos y profesor de periodismo en la Universidad de Amsterdam, Piet Bakker, explica el impacto de la información gratuita en internet y de los diarios gratuitos en la industria de la prensa.

Las conclusiones de Bakker son obvias:

Two forms of free information have emerged over the last decade: free Internet news and free daily newspapers. Internet news is of course not free at all. People invest in hardware, connections and extra features like digital cameras, game consoles, webcams etc. But content is perceived as being free...
...the free daily has been around for more than 10 years now. In general, publishers of paid newspapers don't seem to like free papers that much, as this quote from the publisher of Bild Zeitung illustrates: "every day without a free newspaper is a good day". But in reality the relationship is more complicated: 50% of the total circulation of free newspapers is published by companies that publish paid newspapers as well.

Está aprendiendo, por fin, que la información tiende a ser gratuita. Lo mismo que sostiene el Media Lab del MIT por lo menos desde 1987.

Todos los diarios van a ser gratuitos tarde o temprano. Ya lo sabíamos.