A Penny for Your News

There’s been a flotilla of articles lately on how to save newspapers, and they all seem to agree – giving away news free online was a big mistake. The newspapers should have made their web portals subscription-based from the get-go, and now it’s too late.

So the new plan that will save them is micropayments. It worked for iTunes, they say. It’s currently working like gangbusters for the iPhone apps. You would open an account, tie it to your credit card, and then access a menu of daily headlines. Every time you clicked open a story, you’d be charged. Whether it’s a penny, a dime or 99 cents hasn’t been determined yet, but all this change flowing in will save newspapers. They say.

Well, here’s why it’s not going to work. As long as somebody is giving it away free, you’ll go there instead. The whole internet would have to agree to put a protective pay-for-view on news. As great a site as iTunes is in looks and convenience of use, I still know people who go to Limewire or other sharing sites first, and those sites are messy and unreliable. But free.

And second, when I open a story link, what if I decide it wasn’t worth 10 cents? After a few wasted dimes, wouldn’t I quit? The headlines would have to be very clear about what the story is about, and currently they are not. I click on murder stories and find out it happened in Dinwiddie, and I don’t care. The inrich blogs, especially Barticles, carry headlines which don’t give you the slightest clue what the story is about. I won’t even click on them now when they’re free because I’ve been burned too many times by mysterious Barticles headlines.

In the current issue of Boomer Life, editor Ray McAllister, of the banished tribe of T-D writers, says without newspapers, who will do the investigative reporting, “who will do the spade work to find waste, corruption, fraud, unfairness and mere ineptitude in government. In business. In society.”

Who? Probably the same people doing it now, Style Weekly, the Save Richmond blog, even the Free Press dug up some scandals. (The star reporters in this town right now are all off the T-D grid: Chris Dovi, John Sarvay, Don Harrison, Scott Burger, Silver Persinger, and the commenters at Church Hill Peoples News.) The T-D seemed focused on the big picture, Pulitzer Prize-entry stories like the City jail or long, involved lack-of-medical-care stories, and let all the other stuff just fly by them.

(Boomer Life is a free print publication which puts its entire content online as well. It posts the same .pdf file it sends to the printer. And when you turn the pages online, they even make a swishing paper noise. Their writing staff is everyone you remember from local TV, radio and the newspaper except maybe Sailor Bob. It’s a well-executed marketing plan, and yet there’s no fees involved. Maybe this is what’s going to save newspapers. A better product?)