Saving the News Gatherers

Newspapers are going down the tubes left, right, North, South, East and West.

You can read about the closures and cutbacks here.

The Internet does a good job of disseminating news; but people are needed to gather it so that it exists in the first place. Other than some interns, those people need to get paid.

Is print dead? Not yet, though it’s grasping the ledge so as to not plummet to its death.

Whose fault is it? I think most of the blame goes to the news business itself as it forgot that word business. Media businesses made what may be a fatal mistake early on on-line – they gave us what we used to pay for free, thinking that between print and on-line advertising they could turn a profit. That is turning out not to be true.

I used to subscribe to the local paper, several magazines, and watch network (free) TV news. Now I pay my ISPs (home, office and phone) and cable company. I spend more but I get more.

It may be time to pay for news, not by subscribing again to print sources. Rather, maybe it’s time for the cable/satellite model to be applied to the news business.. Comcast, AT&T and the other cable/satellite companies and ISP’s are aggregators. Why shouldn’t someone aggregate what are now print news sources and charge for it? Some advertising and some subscription revenue.

Would I pay a couple of bucks a week for the News tab in my Bookmarks? Not with joy, but I’d pay it if it meant getting the news versus not getting it.

The linked article predicts that the national news organizations, NYT, USAToday, AP, etc. will survive. For local and regional news sources to survive, it may be a good idea for them to force us to go cold turkey. Keep the reporters but shut down the expensive print operations. Businesses that need to advertise will follow them on-line. As their subscribers increase, other businesses will follow. But they have to wean us of our free mentality. They need to charge for their news on-line as part of a local, regional, national and international menu of offerings. “News Basic, News Gold, News Platinum, etc.” If I’m a sports fan, there’s a package for me. Political junkie? Ditto.

One drawback to this idea is that we are not a universally wired nation. My plan shuts out those that can’t afford an Internet connection and don’t have access to one at work or at a library. But I suspect that those people are among those that didn’t subscribe to papers and magazines twenty years ago either.

I’m not in love with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution; but, I read it for its local reporting For its reporters to be around to report what I want to know it needs to find a modern means of disseminating what it gathers. Internet aggregation may be that means.