It's Time to Start Paying

http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=138804

The time has come… we are actually going to have to start paying for news. I know, you may be thinking, this is unbelievable! But really, did you ever think that the get-everything-for-free-with-the-click-of-a-button model of online news was sustainable? I didn’t. Regardless, it is time to face the facts,

“The era of newspapers giving away on the web what they charge for in print is supposedly coming to an end.”

The question that really arises is: how much are we willing to pay for news? Will we pay per story? Per topic? Will we subscribe to just the local news or just political reporting? Will we care enough to pay for the sensationalized bullshit that we poison our brains with currently? Would you pay a dollar to read a story about the status of Britney Spears’ mental health? I know some of you would…don’t kid yourselves.

“It's a mind trip, this repricing-the-news moment, because no one -- least of all newspeople -- knows what it's really worth. And that's because a lot of news -- possibly most news -- has little real value to the average consumer. Entertainment value sure (in the Garrido case, along the lines of a particularly chilling horror movie), but tangible value?”

This question of the “tangible value” of news is one that we have not had to ask ourselves as journalists in a long time. Being involved in the field of Journalism, we are some of the biggest news-junkies there are. So how much would we pay?

I know my response… I will pay the named price for good, solid reporting. Much like how I pay my 99 cents per song I download on iTunes. If the news websites want to charge for their content, I say go for it! I think we should have been paying for years now. However, I will not pay at all for “infotainment” and “faux news.” If it is that important or interesting, I’ll wait to read about it on twitter or someone’s blog.

This brings up another dilemma that arises with charging for online news. How much of it can we control and regulate so that every single story doesn’t end up retyped in someone’s blog? Will we have to start suing people for re-reporting information that has monetary value? Would this very blog post be subject to copyright issues for pasting sections of Dumenco’s article?