Tribune gambling on subscribers' ability to 'stomach' new online charge

By Brice Wallace

Like many newspapers beset with financial struggles, Utah’s largest daily is joining the ranks of publications putting up a digital paywall.

Jennifer Napier-Pearce, editor of The Salt Lake Tribune, told a Salt Lake City crowd recently that the Trib will begin charging for online content on Feb. 1. An online reader will get 10 free stories before encountering a $7.99 monthly charge.

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“A lot of newspapers are doing this,” she told the Rotary Club of Salt Lake City at a recent luncheon. “The industry is changing, and we need to change with it, so we have to ask our digital subscribers for help. If you support this kind of independent journalism, it takes money.”

Some papers charge for all online content or have a higher subscription cost. The $7.99 is what “thrifty Utahns can probably stomach,” she said. “I’m hoping, I’m gambling on that. … We think that our consumers understand the importance that The Salt Lake Tribune plays in this community. I hope so. I’m gambling on it.”

Napier-Pearce said a bright spot for the company is its digital offerings. A new website debuted last August, the number of digital subscriptions is up nationally and at the Tribune, and the paper’s number of unique visitors online continues to rise, she said.

Still, she acknowledged that the paywall is only one approach to improve the paper’s financial picture. Others are to be more diversified, cut costs and find new income streams. The Tribune has eliminated some sections of its print product and has begun organizing events.

“Newspapers are looking at a myriad of ways to make money. Nobody has figured it out. Nobody. Not even The New York Times,” she said.

The Trib has not cut staff, “because news cannot be automated,” she said, but the paper must find a financially sustainable model. “I cannot, on my watch, let this question just continue to linger. We have to figure it out. … It’s not an easy puzzle to solve,” she said.

One audience member asked how the everyday person can help. Napier-Pearce suggested supporting media, writing letters to the editor, and telling people the Tribune can be trusted.

“What can normal people do to make sure that we have a free press going into the future? I do think it is support. Voting with dollars matters. We have a benefactor in [owner and publisher] Paul Huntsman, which is fantastic, but we are not a charity. He sees this very much as a community asset … but even as a community asset, we are not going to be a charity,” Napier-Pearce said.

“I refuse to believe that there is not a way for us to be financially sustainable. It’s not fair for future generations of journalists for us not to be able to solve this economic question.”

Finances are just one obstacle facing journalistic enterprises today. Among others are a president accusing traditional media of being purveyors of “fake news.” The Tribune tries to fairly and accurately highlight issues in the community, which allows citizens to hold people in power accountable, she said.

“So, for a chief executive to call us ‘the enemy of the people’ is very disheartening,” Napier-Pearce said, adding that the sentiment has trickled down to the point of T-shirts calling for the lynching of reporters.

“Again, not something that we see in functioning democracies,” she said. “You would see this in a banana republic, right? You wouldn’t really expect to see that kind of hostility for a free press [in the U.S.]. It really does run counter to the constitutional protections we all enjoy through the First Amendment.”

Handling the current environment “is not easy,” she said. “It’s not an easy place right now because, I think, journalists, No. 1, have this bad association created from somebody in power who doesn’t like scrutiny. Most politicians don’t like scrutiny, right? But that’s our job. They have a job to do and we have a job to do, and most politicians by and large understand that, Trump excepted.”

Responding to audience questions, Napier-Pearce spelled out “stark differences” separating journalists from bloggers and “anybody else who is spouting opinions.” Journalists follow professional codes of ethics, seek to accurately report the truth, act independently, and stress accountability and transparency.

Running corrections, she noted, is one way to be accountable.

“How many of you are in business, and do you go out there and shout, ‘We screwed up’? Not many businesses do that. Journalists do that. And why is that? Why is it so important? It’s because we’re in the business of credibility. That’s all we have, is for you, for readers, to trust that we’ve done our job and we’ve been thorough and care,” she said.

Napier-Pearce said she would never proclaim that the Tribune reporters are objective because its people “have feelings and we have families and we have lots of opinions, too.” But she stressed that the paper strives to be objective. That contrasts with opinion commentators on TV who are “paid to spin” and “to rile people up,” she said, and she cautioned that readers and viewers bear the onus of understanding that some media outlets are agenda-driven.

“Unfortunately,” she said, “for all of you, you have to be more discriminating than ever as readers, as watchers, to the media that you consume.”{/mprestriction}