The Financial Times and the Future of Journalism

What I&#x27;ve found looking at the <i>Financial Times</i> is that it&#x27;s among the media sources at the very top of my list based on mentions of the <i>Foreign Policy</i>&#x27;s top 100 global thinkers mentions. Its sister publication, <i>The Economist</i>, does even better. The only publication doing better yet is <i>The New York Times</i>, though <i>its</i> results are exceptionally skewed by references to Paul Krugman (a <i>Times</i> columnist and blogger).<p>The results are based on searches for the names of the FP global thinkers members, and was a bit of research I&#x27;d conducted for my own benefit looking for sources of potentially interesting discussion and insight online, including social media, mainstream and altnernative publications, academic, and other institutions.<p>Not a subscriber, though I&#x27;m considering it.<p>Details:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;dredmorbius&#x2F;comments&#x2F;3hp41w&#x2F;tracking_the_conversation_fp_global_100_thinkers&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;dredmorbius&#x2F;comments&#x2F;3hp41w&#x2F;trackin...</a>

Going to try to apply the £1&#x2F;$1&#x2F;€1 trial subscription to my startup - at 80% conversion, it sounds worth a shot, even if it&#x27;s nowhere near there. The idea of forcing a small commitment seems solid, and is far from new.

Good writing.<p>Creative writing.<p>And delivering this multiple ways. They have an audience that works at multiple levels.<p>Universities - Send free or hugely discounted copies of the newspaper to universities or departments with people likely to stick to their content.<p>Free giveaways - Station people at underground stations across London with copies. It&#x27;s more attractive than Metro.<p>Corporate subscription - If a company buys unmetered access for all staff, this is really habit building, and lets people explore. Aside from the above, this is how I was hooked not to give it up, as the value becomes enforced via exploring. This is very similar to the point the article makes &quot;The idea is that for a nominal amount you can read as much as you like, and that creates a habit.&quot;<p>Editorial - Reflects this. It is not &#x27;city boy&#x27; speak. It makes efforts of similar publications&#x27; business sections look like shoddily written and put together opinion pieces appeasing their respective editors across a spectrum of readers. [I&#x27;d contrast this to The Economist which often lacks the quality The FT has for insight. In many cases it is FT Lite.]<p>Actually useful - Walk around a bank and not see a copy. When working in a job in the City it was encouraged for new hires to include it (and other sources) in daily&#x2F;weekly brainstorming meetings. This includes toilet breaks sitting reading the FT while putting the world to rest.<p>A lot of content is actually free - A lot of the non-daily-news sections are always free online. Particularly editorial, multimedia, things via RSS (they still do RSS).<p>Clearly I&#x27;m sold. The reasons above are why. Tangentially, they seem to have very low staff turnover and a clear vision and culture for achieving their vision.

I&#x27;m surprised and disappointed at the quality of reporting here by Cassidy, and the quality of the quotes by the FT&#x27;s CEO Ridding. Cassidy is playing softball, letting the executive get away with the usual corporate propaganda:<p>“Number one is they are fundamentally supportive and excited by the strategy,” Ridding said. “Like us, they believe in the value of quality journalism, both as a mission and also as a business. They also think the language of business is English, and if you are going to be a global player you need a strong English-language position, or voice, or publication. So it made perfect sense from their strategic global perspective.”<p>Seriously? Are we supposed to read this and think it&#x27;s news? News organizations are sometimes guilty of a certain hypocrisy, going easier on themselves, and each other, while they treat the rest of the world with more skepticism.

I&#x27;m on and off their subscription for a couple of years now. What I noticed is that they make it extremely challenging to cancel. While that doesn&#x27;t matter for the first subscription it certainly is something that makes me hesitate to come back to them. In the end their journalism usually wins me over, though :)

They implemented shareware.