付费内容的问题的症结在于你

    任何人只要在Twitter、商务社交网站LinkedIn或 Facebook关注我，就会多少对我的阅读习惯有所了解。尽管我自认为在同龄人中对社交媒体还是比较了解和熟识的——可以看杰西汉佩尔和我就手机软件Snapchat撰写的专稿——我的新闻消费观比较老套。我订了三份报纸，以及几本杂志。

    下面，我想对这几家“老牌媒体”出版物以及我的阅读习惯说上两句。

    首先，我是付费订阅的。第二，我经常使用这些媒体的网络、手机和平板版式内容，一天内在不同的媒体形式间来回切换，根据不同的因素和需要来定，例如身处何方（在家、在办公室或在出租车上）以及当时所做的事情（餐桌前、躺在被窝里、或开会时打发时间）。

    我阅读各类内容，包括电邮简报、博客、以及其他社交媒体上的内容（主要是Twitter、LinkedIn和Facebook）但是，绝大多数真正有实际价值的文章还是来自我付费订阅的老牌媒体。我在社交媒体上有一定的知名度，我也经常与关注好友分享所读到的内容。最近在个人空间中贴出来的东西正好说明了上述情况。一个周末，我转发了《纽约时报》（ the New York Times）上有关纽约流浪女孩的悲惨遭遇，《华尔街时报》（the Wall Street Journal）上有关美国二战老兵曾经接受的前脑叶白质切除术的恐怖报道，以及我在《财富》（Fortune）的同事彼得•艾尔金德有关离职纽约市长布隆伯格将重返其一手创办的彭博社（Bloomberg LP）的全面深度报道。

    意料之中的是，上述这些能得新闻大奖的报道也都出现在了相关的付费出版物上。这些报道耗费了新闻机构数目不小的经费。每一份报道都凝结着记者多年的经验和新闻机构的可信度。

    现在，对内容的收费方法各不相同。《时代》周刊（Times）采用的是计时器方法，非付费用户可以免费阅读所有热门的系列内容。《华尔街日报》有一套自己的想法，特立独行地将部分新闻报道贴在网上，供免费阅读。《财富》杂志则将纸质杂志上的所有内容设为付费内容，但网站上的文稿，包括这篇文章，都是免费的。传统媒体在内容收费问题上的做法各不相同。《名利场》杂志（Vanity Fair）将贝萨尼•迈克林有关玛丽莎•梅耶尔的报道免费放在网站上。我猜想《名利场》一定借此赚取足够的网络广告效应，以便能带来更多的订阅。这就是出版业的特性。

    Anyone who follows me on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook knows a little something about my reading habits. Although I like to think I'm as proficient at and knowledgeable about social media as anyone my age -- see the feature Jessi Hempel and I recently wrote about the buzzy mobile application Snapchat -- my journalism consumption is fairly old school. I get three newspapers delivered to my doorstep, and I also subscribe to numerous magazines.

    A few comments on these "old-media" publications and how I use them.

    First, I pay for them. Second, I avidly use their web, phone, and tablet versions too, switching back and forth among media over the course of the day, depending on a wide variety of factors, including where I am (at home, in the office, in a taxi) and what I'm doing (sitting at the kitchen table, lying in bed, battling boredom at a meeting).

    I read all sorts of things, including e-mail newsletters, blogs, and other things I find on social media -- primarily Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook -- but the overwhelming majority of the articles from which I get true value are the old-media publications for which I pay. As a journalist with a public profile and a social media presence of my own, I also share what I read with people who follow me. A recent spate of items I shared perfectly illustrates my point. Over the course of one weekend I shared the outstanding series the New York Times wrote about the plight of a homeless girl in New York, the shocking reporting by the Wall Street Journal about lobotomies performed on World War II veterans in the U.S., and my own colleague Peter Elkind's exhaustive and penetrating examination in Fortune of Bloomberg LP at the precise moment its founder, departing New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, is about to return to his company.

    It's no coincidence that each of these likely prize-winning reports appeared in publications that require readers to pay. Each cost the organizations involved serious money to produce. Each built on the experience of the journalists involved and the credibility of institutions that backed them.

    Now, there is no one right way to charge for content. The Times uses a metering method, meaning that a casual, non-paying reader could view all of the Dasani series without paying. The Journal arbitrarily makes some of its journalism available for free, according to its own mysterious methodology. Fortune puts nearly all of the journalism that appears in the printed magazine behind a paywall, while it makes all its web-specific articles, including this essay, available for free. (Go figure.) Nor is there unanimity among traditional media regarding charging at all. The magazine Vanity Fair made Bethany McLean's outstanding profile of Marissa Mayer available online for free. I assume that Vanity Fair believes it can generate enough digital advertising and, more importantly, drive subscriptions to its magazine that way. It is the publication's prerogative.