Wake Up Call
By
Ron Steinman
This is about a possible way to save newspapers, or if not old media, newspapers on paper, at least to make news on the Web economically viable. It is also about the idea that just because the Internet is free, or so it seems, it does not mean that it is really free because nothing ever really is. Someone recently said something to the effect that free is not the only price that entices the consumer. Freedom is great but it is time to pay up.
So, this is also about a growing set of theories that it is time that people paid for news, even if a small amount that in the end can work to keep accurate and superior information flowing. Most of these articles are by the few preaching to even fewer. We rarely find these thoughts and theories on the front page. Usually newspapers hide them on the back pages. In other words, they are preaching to the choir and most of what they say, goes unheard.
A major weakness of the Web is that those who use it know they can maneuver over its infinite expanse at will for nothing. It is time that idea died. Don’t get me wrong. I am against carriers charging for how much or how little I might use the Internet. I am a supporter of Net Neutrality. I simply believe that news sites should have the right to charge for the use of what they produce to give those sites the support they need to keep producing at a high level. And people, if they think for a minute, should realize they would be getting a bargain for the low price they will pay. Without sounding high-handed, our democracy deserves this more than ever.
My father did not say much about life or politics but when he said something, he was specific and direct. He contended that a day’s pay for a day’s work was a fair exchange. There is nothing free on the earth he said. Living is costly and takes its toll. If you live in an open society, these truisms are undeniable. You have to earn your way by hard work to get anywhere in this life, he told me. If someone makes something and wants to sell it, you should be willing to pay the asking price. Bargaining is okay as long as the seller and buyer agree to terms and recognize that neither walks away empty-handed. Where am I going with this? It has to do with the Internet, newspapers, and a generation that believes anything and everything on the Web is free and, worse, that they can use that information however they want without any payment or permission to the creator or rights holder. That is arrogant at best that makes me wonder how spoiled is this generation.
Those are concepts I have difficulty understanding. You may know much of what I am talking about, but I thought I would repeat some of it in the hopes it will be a wake up call, even for a few.
Along with a sinking economy and advertising dollars drying up everywhere and especially for print, meaning newspapers and magazines, and, yes, broadcasting also faces the problem of declining advertising dollars, there is a major and additional problem that the old media faces. Many among the young do not want to read, either forgot how to read, and if they do read, only read headlines or junk news. They are lazy when it comes to attaining information that matters more than Brittney Spears or Paris Hilton. TMZ counts for more to them than the state of the economy. I would wager despite the enormous amount of information on the Web, most of which is free, the current generation may be the least or worst informed of any in the last one hundred years. Reading in depth is dying, if it is not already dead.
We have to decide if we want newspapers, even if in a new dimension such as the Internet, to live or die. It is that simple. Newspapers in all their various forms will continue to fail with regularity. Without advertising and with a declining readership because of the Web and young readers who want a quick fix on cell phones, I-pods, and lately Twitter, and who live by headlines alone, I can hear the death rattle as I write. At least in the manner of newspapers we have seen all our lives.
There has been some migration of readers to the Web, but because news Web sites rarely charge for their product, and because advertising has not traveled to the Web equal to what it had been for newspapers, Web based news sites are also in danger of not surviving. To put it another way, there may not be the money to provide the audience with the kind of news it needs to make informed decisions. Web sites have smaller news staffs. Journalists, already overworked, will be even more so because they constantly have to file on multiple platforms. Investigative reporting, the lifeblood of news, will surely suffer as a result. The few new sites devoted to investigative journalism will not suffice. After the current money runs out on even those sites, will there be anyone with deep enough pockets to continue supporting their efforts. Local corruption will go unnoticed. Cheating will become the lifeblood of government. Even hit and run accidents will probably not be reported. Above all else, no sun will shine on the city council and the mayor’s office. And that is only for local news. Imagine the wasteland that Washington, national and international news will experience. I could go on but you get the picture.
In this world of uncertainties, you owe it to yourself to be well informed. It would be too much for me to ask anyone reading this, to read a newspaper as a newspaper. I will keep doing it because it is my habit and I enjoy the feel of the paper between my hands and I welcome the smudges of newsprint on my fingers. But people should pay fealty to a great tradition and the sense of a newspaper whatever the method of delivery. As for working through an arregator as a way to get news, I have my doubts about their real value. Stay in touch, though. That is for a column in the near future.
For now, it is time to pay up people. If you do, it will be good for the soul.
Read Ron Steinman’s Survval Manual blog.
