Support critical to maintain trusted news source

Editor's Note: This column was part of our July 17 Pulse. The weekly enewsletter is sent to our list of nearly 15,000 subscribers.Last week, Tom Bengtson shared that we have relaunched our online news site as BankNews.com, a shift meant to strengthen our brand while also allowing us to build a wider digital subscriber base. The latter being critical to our long-term viability.. Publishing companies have delivered news digitally for roughly 25 years, and still many of us face resistance to gaining online subscribers. These days, this isn’t so much because people believe news ought to be free; today, resistance is fed by artificial intelligence that steals (yes, steals) published content in order to provide summaries in response to user prompts. Why read the original when AI can deliver the Cliff Notes version in under five seconds? You, of course, know the adage “you get what you pay for.” Is the information that’s available to you lightning fast and without cost delivering any value? I’d argue it’s not. Maybe it’s current but is it contextualized? Maybe it’s fast but does it provide transparency in terms of source material that you’re willing to verify? Maybe it’s free but does it take into account the opinions of a diverse set of experts whom you know and trust? In conversation recently for a feature I’m writing, the subject of trust came up. My source used the synonym "fidelity" or the ability to “be there and be trusted.” Whether you prefer the word trust or fidelity, the idea is one that I expect bankers understand to their core. You cannot build a banking relationship without first earning a customer’s trust.Trust is critical in my business too. For me and my colleagues — the people who strive every day to deliver independent thought and reliable industry news or insights by deploying a journalistic craft that contextualizes knowledge based on experience, history, and conversations with real experts — earning and keeping your trust underlies every interview, every draft, every proof, every delivered edition that reaches you (because we still also deliver our work in print), along with the content that is delivered digitally. In order for us to keep “being there” as a trusted independent source for industry intelligence, we need you to subscribe. We don’t think twice about the nature of the work we do, or how much effort goes into it, because our work is really our avocation. We do think about the cost of delivering this service, however, as we face many of the same pressures that weigh on you. My colleague Sam Wilmes has spent months fine-tuning the new site while also maintaining BankBeat.biz and continuing to write for the print magazine. I congratulate him on his fortitude. Now that the site is live, we trust that our regular visitors have found it easy to adapt to the new look. Though I love the new site, I’m still partial to the print magazine. My eyes just prefer reading words on paper. Whatever your preference, please consider lending your support to what we do for the industry. We’ve been at this for a long time and we’ve still got a lot of gas in the tank.