[...] online news, even a pullback from the Web altogether. But even with this strategy, most newspapers (not all) are too afraid to go it alone. Instead, they’re cleverly skirting anti-trust laws with a [...]

Mr. Sherman: Go for it. It’s a worthwhile and, in many respects, gutsy experiment. Tell your critics to go pound sand. They are not your customers anyway, so who cares what they think?

[...] of charge. Everybody else must pay, either on a story-by-story basis or on a subscription plan. The Newport Daily News, a small Rhode Island newspaper, recently began charging $345 per year for online access to stories [...]

[...] online news, even a pullback from the Web altogether. But even with this strategy, most newspapers (not all) are too afraid to go it alone. Instead, they’re cleverly skirting anti-trust laws with a [...]

1) We will be weaker–mightily–without them, as a society and citizens and

2) They are dying, in their present form and what used to work, isn’t and won’t.

Accept these as truths, if you work for a paper, and go forward from there. If you deny either of these–and I think too many people in this industry are–and you will be one more of the dinosaurs yourself.

As The Eagles sang in one of their songs: “Get over it”.

Mo Rage

It’s the same with newspapers as it is with old gentlemen who wear suits to the office. (I used to work for a men’s clothing store).

Every time a hearse takes another senior to the cemetery, it’s one less person who will read the newspaper.

The younger the person, the more they use the computer and the less they need, want or read the paper. Get used to it, ladies and gentlemen.

This experiment may work for a little while but it’s like the pilot who turns his engines off on his plane, mid-flight–pretty soon the plane starts going down.

Mo Rage
The Blog

PS. And I don’t trash newspapers in person or on my blog.

What newspapers need to do, hopefully, is 1) either keep on staff or hire back good reporters who can and do attack local issues hard, especially local government, etc. With harder-hitting news, they have a better and more valuable, important product to put out. As it is, most all these news organizations are slashing their staffs and cutting back the paper and reporting but expecting everyone to continue to want the shoddier product they’re putting out. Again, for a local example, see The Kansas City Star.

2) Have a much better product online–one that a) reflects how the paper looks, for starters and b) is easy to work with and search. Once again, for an example of how NOT to do an online newspaper, see The Kansas City Star at http://www.kansascity.com.

We need to trasition to clean energy–I know, different subject–hopefully, as soon as possible and with photovoltaic cells and transition to online newspapers and reporting so we can, as said above, stop leveling forests, to create this mush so we can spend 20 minutes with it and then throw it in a landfill.

Simple as that. (Tongue firmly planted in cheek).

Mo Rage
The Blog

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[...] Lab: Charging (a lot!) for news online: The Newport Daily News’ new experiment with paid [...]

“Have they any thoughts on why their no doubt vital, unique and irreplaceable content only adds up to a pitiful 12,000 circulation as it is?”

Gee, I don’t know … maybe because they’re in a relatively small market? Newport’s population is about 25,000.

[...] in North Carolina could follow the lead of the Newport Daily News, which charges more for online subscriptions than print in an effort to push the reader back to the [...]

[...] Charging (a lot!) for news online [...]