Why The Economist is so much better than the WSJ

Charles Warner writes on The Huffington Post about why The Economist is so much better than The Wall Street Journal even though they use similar pay strategies for their online content.

Warner writes, “The Economist‘s content is intelligent, well written, and well researched. And because it’s the best business and economic content on the Web (and in print), it can charge for it (although not quite as much as the WSJ does) and continue to sell ads at high rates because of its desirable audience.

“This is a trend — people will pay for excellent, intelligently written, insightful content because it’s now easy to find it on the Web. Discerning people will stray from boring, unremarkable content because news brands don’t mean as much as they used to.

“The New York Times has lost its brand for reliable information, except in art, culture, and food, and the Wall Street Journal under Murdoch has lost its brand for insightful, well-written business coverage.

“No matter what kind of brand it is (news, information, celebrity gossip, or tech gossip), a brand has to earn its stripes every day in the open, searchable, free environment of the Web. The Times and the WSJ have lost their business information stripes by being inaccurate or boring or irrelevant (or all three).”

Read more here.