The rise of the paywall business press in DC

John Heltman, a reporter for American Banker, writes for Washington Monthly about how paywall news sites that cover what’s going on in Washington that’s of importance to traders, lobbyists and other business people are reporting great stories while those who read the daily media miss out on that coverage.

Heltman writes, “With an almost unlimited amount of source material to draw on, a rapidly growing set of potential elite readers, and fewer competitors in the form of newspapers and newswires, it’s no surprise that the paywall press would blow up while newspapers faltered. ‘It’s just simple economics, it makes total sense,’ says Nicholas Lemann, dean emeritus at the Columbia Journalism School.

“As demand for well-reported insider news has grown, new players have entered the market. One is Bloomberg Government, a subsidiary of Bloomberg LP, the media giant founded by Michael Bloomberg and best known for providing market data to Wall Street traders via proprietary terminals. Bloomberg Government, or BGOV, was established in 2011 to provide subscribers — lobbyists, contractors, and investors — with the kind of fine-grained data and analytics about government that Bloomberg’s other operations provide about companies and markets.

“The company also has free web products, like Bloomberg News and Bloomberg/Businessweek, with reporters in D.C. All told, Bloomberg has increased its news operations from seven correspondents in 1991 — when it first applied for accreditation in the Senate Daily Press Gallery — to 193 in 2013, not including the additional 185 employees of Bloomberg BNA.”

Read more here.