Online news should be free of charge
August 25, 2007 by Dave Earley
Filed under Media, News, Online, Print
David Lazarus in the San Francisco Chronicle argues that, for newspapers to “survive in an age of free online content” they need to start charging for the use of their products online.
The argument is counter-intuitive. It is an age of free online content. That is the fact. Â
If newspapers start charging for their online products, they won’t survive in this age of free online content. People will simply go elsewhere.
Should newspapers sue Google or Yahoo for their content appearing on news aggregators? No, but perhaps in their concern they could collaborate with Google to count online readership. Surely another way of counting online readership for individual mastheads could be when they are read externally, in the same way RSS readership can be counted even when your site is not visited.
Also stake claim to some of the advertising click, or visit length, revenue being collected, and it becomes desirable to a media outlet that their content is seen freely by as wide an audience as possible.
Whatever else, newspapers must demonstrate that their online content has value.
“The students I teach really do believe that everything on the Internet is theirs for the taking,” Kirtley said. “Young people have been conditioned to believe that they’re entitled to this content.”
It’s time for newspapers to condition them otherwise.Â
No, it is time for all media outlets with online interests to demonstrate their content has value, and then to stop harping and work a bit harder at figuring out how they’re going to get advertising to pay for it – in the same way the advertising pays for their print stable.
