BULLETIN’S JOURNALISM HAS TO BE PAID FOR

There are many people in Townsville, actually across the country, who think it is OK to cut and paste journalists’ work and share it on a myriad of social media platforms. I get it, it doesn’t seem like much of a big deal, cutting out a clipping from the paper or copying an online article and posting it to all followers on Facebook and Twitter to show what’s going on, but it is.

Last night the Bulletin’s story of a young Digger who committed suicide was shared like this on a local social media page.

People were angry that we would lock a story like this, that we would try and make money off the death of a young soldier.

“F--- your paywall Townsville Bulletin,” was one of the comments.

Then a Bulletin reader who had a subscription decided to share the story saying “for something of this nature, happy to help, mate”.

Being the editor of the Townsville Bulletin I jumped on trying to explain why we need people to subscribe to the Bully. To the social media crowd it didn’t go down well but the thing is, we are a business.

The Bulletin has been a business since its inception.

People have paid for advertising and people have paid for papers since day one.

Does anyone think it is OK to waltz into a newsagent and steal a paper? No.

I get it, in the online world a lot of people think it is OK to download an illegal film or copy stories from publications and share them with the world but all it is doing is hurting local media. The journalists at the Bully work hard to shine a light on the issues that matter in Townsville.

We cover more stories than any other news source. Are we perfect?

Of course not, we make plenty of mistakes but we are local and we are dedicated to Townsville and covering stories that no one else does.

If we don’t have people paying for the privilege, online or via the paper, than we will lose the Townsville Bulletin and our community will be worse off.