Leaf&Core

Apple Introduced News+ to Change Journalism… Again

Danielle from Leaf and Core
Reading Time: 5 minutes.

Apple News+ story on an iPhone, iPad, and MacBookIn 2011, Apple introduced Newsstand. It was their first foray into news and magazine subscriptions. It wouldn’t be their last.

The idea was simple. Instead of having apps in the App Store, magazines could put their apps in Newsstand. There, people could subscribe to their favorite magazines and read them just like they would physical copies. In fact, if you watched both presentations, you likely had a strange feeling of déjà vu. And here’s why.

So how is Apple’s new News+ subscription service different than Newsstand? Maybe you picked it up from the presentation comparison above, but News+ is just one subscription. No one wants to subscribe to hundreds of magazines. In fact, I didn’t know that anyone still subscribed to magazines. However, they’re great pieces of journalism, showing off fantastic photojournalism as well as wonderful long form pieces. I truly appreciate magazines, but the physical format detracts from their value, and digital versions have been poor attempts to make magazines relevant again.

News+ is a subscription service that gives you access to over 300 magazines and two newspapers, the LA Times and the Wall Street Journal in the U.S., and the Toronto Star in Canada. As a result, it stands to succeed where Newsstand failed. It can, for one price, introduce news readers to fantastic journalism.

That price is $9.99/month, by the way.

What is News+?

Apple News+ is a new subscription service from Apple, a company that now has a number of subscription services. They have Apple Music for $9.99/month, and now, also for $9.99/month, they have News+. In the Fall, we’ll see Apple Arcade for an as-of-yet unnamed price, as well as Apple TV+, for a similarly unnamed price. You could end up paying around $40/month or more on Apple services.

So what makes Apple News+ different from Apple News? Apple has introduced a monthly subscription service containing over 300 magazines and two newspapers. Those magazines and newspapers will be available in full the day they’re released.

“We’re committed to supporting quality journalism, and with Apple News+, we want to celebrate the great work being done by magazines and news outlets. We think the breadth and quality of publications within Apple News+ will encourage more people to discover stories and titles they may never have come across before.”

– Lauren Kern, editor-in-chief of Apple News

Just like Apple TV+ and Apple Arcade, Apple News+ is all about the content. A subscription allows you to freely browse through magazines and news articles. It’s like getting hundreds of magazines (and two newspapers in the U.S.) delivered to your door every day, without the waste.

Subscribers won’t just get access to current issues. They’ll also be able to peruse past issues of the included magazines. It won’t matter when you subscribe, you’ll be able to find great current and past content.

Finally, subscribers will be able to find articles that are considered premium content from other online publishers. This includes The Highlight by Vox, Vulture from New York Magazine, The Cut, Grub Street, and Extra Crunch from Verizon Media’s TechCrunch.

Will News+ Be Good for Journalists?

According to The New York Times, no, it won’t be. The New York Times charges $15/month for their basic subscription. For their full experience, included printed newspapers, it’s $36/month. That’s a lot more than the $9.99/month Apple charges. Furthermore, Apple will take their cut of that $9.99/month, which is rumored to be 50%, and split the rest of the revenue with the other organizations. The end result is a much smaller fee per subscriber.

Of course, one could argue that this means more people will subscribe than ever before, making up for that low price with volume. However, for The New York Times, this point is moot. Subscriptions are up for the newspaper. The 2016 U.S. election was a contentious and exciting one, and since then, the news cycle has been unpredictable, worrying, and vitally important. As the president of the United States vitriolically attacks free speech and the press, journalism has never been more important in the country. People have noticed this, and have flocked to one of the United States’ greatest institutions: The New York Times.

However, I tend to believe there’s a balance here. I couldn’t rationalize paying $15/month for The New York Times, especially since I already pay for the Washington Post. For me, spending nearly $20/month on just two subscriptions with overlapping journalistic integrity and stories feels foolish. However, I would love a service that gave me access to multiple newspapers. I always like to read the same story from multiple services, and I believe in paying for journalism. If it had The New York Times and other newspapers, I’d happily pay $15/month for Apple News+. Perhaps Apple should meet these larger and more popular newspapers in the middle and offer them for an extended price tier. $9.99/month for magazines and two newspapers, $15/month for more newspapers.

Where Are the Newspapers?

That brings me to the crux of my issue with Apple News+. The service has only two newspapers in the U.S. and one in Canada. The LA Times is great, and I do read articles from it frequently. The Wall Street Journal is alright. I read it on occasion as well, especially when I need a more reputable right leaning news source. However, I don’t consider it a primary news source, nor do I think it should be considered one. Media Bias Fact Checker points out that it’s right of center with mixed factual reporting. I’d give The Wall Street Journal a little more credit, it’s more often factual than not, but it isn’t as reliable as other, more centrist or left leaning sources, like the LA Times.

But where are the other newspapers? Where’s The Washington Post? Where’s The New York Times? USA Today? What about the Chicago Tribune? Where are these American institutions of news? I’m a news fiend, when I hear about a news subscription, I expect it to contain daily news!

What about all the digital news subscriptions, or donation based news sources like NPR or The Guardian? What about the websites and blogs that should receive money for their work? Why are there so few examples of these, and all of them from large sites that already had a subscription feature? Where is my actual daily news?

And the Rest of My News?

Don’t get me wrong, magazines provide an excellent big picture of the news in the world, but they’re not a daily look into the world as it changes around us. They’re a retrospective of a month. I read so much news every day, and I want each site to get their fair share. I want part of my subscription to go to 9to5Mac, a site I read often and frequently use as a source here. Or Cult of Mac, MacRumors, or AppleInsider. I want these sites to get a slice of the pie. So, while I proposed a $15/month solution in the previous section for newspapers, I’d like to add a new tier, $20/month to dole out some cash to the sites you frequent the most through Apple News+. For $20/month you get all of Apple News+’s magazines, newspapers, and you pay for the sites you read the most in the form of a $5/month donation.

News++?

I feel like the resounding point I’m making is that News+ isn’t enough for me. I don’t read magazines often, but I may start reading them more often with an Apple News+ subscription (I’m trying it out!). But my primary sources of news aren’t here, and this isn’t going to save journalism because it does absolutely nothing for the unsung journalistic heroes, the little guys. The small sites getting the news out to their followers for small pieces of ad revenue and low wages. I want to boost them. I want to save those sites. Apple News+ has to be more, because it can be so much more.

Apple may be waiting to see if News+ is a success before putting more into it, but there’s a huge flaw in their plan. No one buys a bike because they’re waiting for Mazda to release a car. They buy the car! Apple’s trying to sell a bike to people who want a car, and they’re judging the popularity of cars based off of the sales of bikes. They’re offering an incomplete product, and, if it fails, they’ll shrug and say, “I suppose no one wants the full thing.”

The problem is that we’ve seen so many half measures. We want a full measure. Newsstand wasn’t good enough. Neither is News+. I suppose we’ll just have to wait to see if Apple gets it right another 8 years from now.

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