Many of us have become accustomed to, perhaps spoiled by, the presence of free news on the internet.\u00a0 This is particularly so when the source of the information is a daily newspaper.<\/p>\n

Many newspapers are already charging for access.\u00a0 The New York Times has joined the parade and charges a fee for anyone accessing more than twenty stories a month.\u00a0 So does the Boston Globe, which is owned by the Times.\u00a0 In many cases, including the Times, the on-line charge is dropped if one subscribes to the print edition.\u00a0 This makes perfectly good sense, because the cost of producing on-line newspapers is far less than the revenue lost by the cancellation of home delivery of print editions.<\/p>\n

Howard Kurtz, media critic for CNN, reports<\/a> in an on-line post:<\/p>\n

The Washington Post, one of the last holdouts among major newspapers, will probably begin charging<\/a> for online access next year. And the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News recently announced that they will launch separate paywall sites early next year.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Washington Post\u2019s system would be similar to that of the New York Times in that \u201conline readers once they surpass a certain number of articles or multimedia features a month. \u00a0Access to the home page and section fronts would not be limited.\u201d\u00a0 The Post may also be raising the cost of their print edition.<\/p>\n

Kurtz goes on to say:<\/p>\n

We’re all spoiled by the illusion that we can get whatever we want on the interwebs without having to pay a dime. Fire up the Google, troll the Twitter, see who’s got the most tantalizing links. We all do it, and we all take it for granted.<\/p>\n

But you can’t have a media ecosystem in which everyone is aggregating, summarizing and retweeting content from everyone else. At some point there have to be actual human beings making phone calls and attending events and pawing through public documents.<\/p>\n

The result, as we all know, has been widespread carnage in American newsrooms. Some papers, such as the Rocky Mountain News and Seattle Post-Intelligencer, have folded. Others, such as The New Orleans Times-Picayune, have cut back to three times a week. The Cleveland Plain Dealer just announced it is slashing a third of its newsroom. Even The New York Times, which has made fewer cuts than most papers, said last week that 30 jobs will be lost to buyouts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In many ways we\u2019ve been spoiled.\u00a0 We\u2019ve come to expect on-line news to be free.\u00a0 Many of us have wondered why we have been so fortunate as to get the best of news while not paying a dime.\u00a0 The answer is, much to our surprise, that on-line advertising generally covers the cost of the freight.\u00a0 This may be difficult to believe because many of us would say, \u201cI\u2019ve never paid attention to the ads or purchased anything that\u2019s advertised on-line.\u201d\u00a0 The problem with this contention is that by definition, we don\u2019t pick up the subliminal messages.\u00a0 We may have bought numerous items because an advertisement, even one that we don\u2019t focus on, just pushes us over the cliff to make the purchase.<\/p>\n

One of the problems with charging for on-line news is that it is a regressive expense.\u00a0 People who are wealthy can easily pay $10 or $20 a month for a newspaper or magazine.\u00a0 Those who have less income clearly cannot afford such an expense, especially when they\u2019re struggling to put food on the table and may well have bought their computer with a nearly maxed-out credit card.\u00a0 They will not be able to broach the paywall.\u00a0 Additionally, the fees could also be prohibitive for educational institutions and libraries.<\/p>\n

On-line fees may be a price that we have to pay.\u00a0 We have become accustomed to thinking that we are entitled to something for nothing.\u00a0 That\u2019s only because we were spoiled in the beginning; when newspapers started to publish on-line editions.\u00a0 Perhaps what they were doing was bait and switch.\u00a0 In this case, the switch may actually be appropriate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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