Build the Wall article

• Section 1: This section states that news should be paid through subscriptions to keep the industry stable
• Section 2: Evaluates the pro's/con's of establishing a paywall through using examples, and the risks establishing a paywall may carry and the impact of revenues on the industry
• Section 3: The change in news and revenue since 1995, evaluates statistics. 
• Section 4: Discusses the different scenarios that may take place if newspapers establish the paywall and the impact each scenario will have on revenue etc. 

4) David Simon overall argument is that paywall's are necessary to keep newspapers going and the industry stable. Simon believes that if newspapers are going to establish a paywall on their online site, all other newspapers would need to do the same to keep the industry going, as readers will ultimately prefer to read the free version of the news rather than the paid version. Furthermore, he states that content matters and that the news industry will have to find a way to make people pay for that content, and this can only be done through professional journalism. "If you do not find a way to make people pay for your product, then you are—if you choose to remain in this line of work—delusional." To support his argument of creating paywalls, Simon uses The Times and The Post as an example of the potential newspapers can have if they go for it. According to Simon, great revenue would be brought in for the two newspapers as as more people are reading the Times (nearly 20 million average unique visitors monthly) and the Post (more than 10 million monthly unique visitors), though they are doing it online and not paying for the privilege. This highlights the potential of these newspapers if they were to make their users pay for their content. Simon continues to outline the several scenarios that could take place if the newspaper industry was to take forward the idea of paywalls and the impact it would have on regional and national audiences.

5) AC Graylings piece on the state of journalism has references to new and digital media as it discusses the impact that citizen journalism is having on the news industry, as highlighted through the phenomena of blogging and interactivity it has created to the the comment threads that accompany articles. Grayling goes on to discuss the positives and the negatives of the influence of new/digital media on the newspaper industry, such as users having the chance to express their opinions and debate and the way it has made the world "porous to information". Despite the negatives such as the "volume of rubbish" online and the weaker presence the media has over some parts of the world such as the US, the article gives an overall view that we just have to accept the changes that new and digital media has brought us.

6) I personally believe that journalism is a profession that is being affected by the lack of revenue and this will ultimately lead to a decline in good journalism, therefore a paywall is in some form necessary in order to keep good journalism alive. As an individual, I would pay for news if it is completely worth it, however if the same news is available for free from a different source then unsurprisingly I would turn to it, such as the BBC which provides free, unbiased news. Getting news is ultimately a right that everyone is entitled for because as a society we need to keep up with what is going on in the world, and not all can afford to or want to pay for news when they can easily get it for free anywhere else. I believe there should be some sort of scheme that supports newspapers, and that only high end news papers should charge their readers such as The Financial Times does. Paywall's have been proven to not always work i.e. The Sun, so I believe that it is not something for all newspapers to take part in and they should instead attempt to find revenue somewhere else.