The Washington Post just announced that it is getting back into the business of reporting on business. So far, so good. After all, this is the paper that eliminated its standalone business section last year, prompting me to relinquish my print subscription.
But then I looked at the model:
- The new business coverage will take the form of a weekly print publication
- You have to be a current Washington Post subscriber to subscribe
- It’s going to cost somewhere around $50 per year (well, maybe non-Post-subscribers will be able to subscribe, but pay more)
Does anyone else think something is wrong with this model?
It’s not enough to have a business model, it needs to be a good model. Here are three problems I see with this one:
- Competition (including the Washington Business Journal)
- Timeliness (seriously, in a 24/7 news cycle, a newspaper company is proposing a new weekly?)
- Cost (if you’re an existing Washington Post subscriber, don’t you think the paper should already be providing business coverage?)
What’s your take?
Photo by Eddie Welker (Flickr).
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Daria,
My take is that this venture will fail, and quickly. I got my first copy with the newspaper on Monday. It is more than $50 to subscribe first of all. Why would I pay extra? Second, it repeated some of the same information published in the daily. Third, as you say, we already have the WBJ, which SPECIALIZES in business news.
Better would have been to create a stand-alone business section that adds value to the existing newspaper.
Deborah
@Deborah — Thanks for the updated info. This really doesn’t make sense. I’d love to have been in the room when this plan was hatched.
Daria, some corrected information. The subscription to the weekly is $49 a year and is only available to current Post subscribers.