With the ongoing shift from free news sites to ones that require subscription for access, researchers have raised questions about the downstream effects on news knowledge — on basic understanding of key facts about public affairs. In a world of paywalls, as one study asked, “how can journalism provide quality news for everyone?”
Put another way: as more and more people “bounce off” paywalls, reading less and less local news especially, what happens to overall public understanding and citizen know-how? This question seems particularly pertinent for young people who are presumed to have less interest in news and less willingness to pay for it — and thus less likely to develop news-subscribing habits that will follow them (and their dependents) over time.
