Keith Grossman, president of the global media corporation TIME, warned students of the potential consequences of paywalls in media and political polarization at an event at Georgetown University on Sept. 11. 

Grossman, who has managed TIME’s business, advertising and marketing operations since joining the company in July 2019, spoke in the Fisher Colloquium in the Rafik B. Hariri Building. Grossman was the latest speaker in the “Stanton Distinguished Leaders Series,” put on by the McDonough School of Business to showcase the best of the business world, according to the MSB website.

Paywall mechanisms used by media companies like The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and other subscription sources can alienate less privileged consumers and leave them vulnerable to misinformation, according to Grossman at the event. 

“If all of the greatest, most premium news sources think that the right path forward is to put a paywall on their content, what they’re doing is they’re creating content for an affluent audience, not for the general public,” Grossman said. “Now, there’s nothing wrong with that, but the problem is that the general public thinks that news is a public utility, but it’s not, it’s a for-profit entity for the most part.”

Instead of going through the practical and financial hardship of subscribing to a news source, consumers will search for other, generally poorer quality sources, Grossman said.

“What you find is if you all of a sudden put paywalls on all of the greatest news sources out there — and there are paywalls on the greatest news sources out there — and you put that back into a distributive news environment, when the consumer is faced with finding or accessing a piece of news that is all of a sudden gated, they don’t tend to go through the whole process,” Grossman said. 

Some news companies use other methods to enable free news consumption. Many American publications, like The New York Times, offer nonsubscribers a monthly limit of articles they can read for free. TIME Magazine has previously operated under a limit system that granted readers free access to 10 articles a month but then required a $2.99 subscription to continue reading as of 2015. 

By establishing paywalls for more specialized information and leaving general news open to the public, companies could increase accessibility, according to Grossman. 

“My personal belief, my bias, and where I’d like to see TIME go is: at the highest level, we’re giving the general news, keep that open and free, and put more gated communities around what I would say are the niche areas of the site,” he said.

Grossman’s perspective comes after an extensive career in the media, including former positions as Chief Revenue Officer at Bloomberg Media and Chief Operating Officer at Engine, a global marketing firm. Grossman also worked as an associate publisher for the technology publications Wired and Ars Technica. 

In a profit-driven media environment where partisan slants can boost ratings, media companies have incentives to be polarizing, according to Grossman.  

“What you’re finding yourself in is a scenario where news again is not a public utility. It’s a for-profit business. What they’re finding is that it’s easier for them to bifurcate further,” Grossman said. 

Social media also poses a threat, as individuals are consuming media in an increasingly manipulated expanding echo chamber, according to Grossman.

“The other issue that people are finding is that in a distributive news environment where people are getting information on social media platforms, people are creating their own friend networks with news that is reinforcing filter bubbles of how people are sharing to each other,” Grossman said. “It worries me how we actually navigate ourselves out of this. I don’t really know the answer.”

To combat fake news circulated on social media, regulators should increase oversight of companies like Facebook and Google that disseminate news, according to Grossman. 

“If they’re classified as media companies then they’re responsible for the content that they allow to be distributed, and that would solve everything, but that’s not what is happening,” Grossman said.