Last week saw an interesting twist in the ongoing debate of how the news industry is going to be saved from extinction, and it came in the shape of the Daily
Mail.

Whilst Mr. Murdoch has started building walls, the Mail has looked to the bright lights of the US of A to try and make a dollar or two. Last week it was announced that Mail Online is making an aggressive push into the US with the hiring of editorial and sales staff in Los Angeles.

A British newspaper aiming to make it big across the pond is not exactly breaking news – back in 2006 the Guardian expressed its intentions to reach out to new American audiences.

But is the Daily Mail in a position to actually make this work? Whilst as a news source it is continuously derided for its, how shall we say, ’not particularly liberal’ viewpoints, penchant for linking everything to cancer and sometimes inaccurate reporting, it can’t be ignored that it regularly beats every other news paper in terms of online traffic, giving it a model to monetise.

A lot of this traffic comes from the site’s heavy focus on celebrity/showbiz and this is what the Mail intends to play on to secure its American dream. So is this a viable move to remedy the need to start making money from news content once again? With News International’s paywall still in its early days, it is too soon to tell, but this move should
prove as an interesting ‘testing of the water’ for those that are holding off on charging us to get our news.  

@AJGriffiths