Rick Raw: Paying for News Online Will Never Fly–The Rocket has Blasted Off the Pad

By Rick Grant Commentary rickgrant01@comcast.net

Recently "The New York Times" announced plans to charge for full access to its website. Times’ readers will be able to access a certain number of stories for free each month, with fees kicking in for readers who exceed that level. Well, good luck with that bonehead proposal. It will never workout in the long run. Paying for news that is already free on television or the Internet is madness.

As major newspapers clamor for ways to make up their plummeting ad revenues, executives are brainstorming new ways to offset their losses. Since the Internet has been streaming news free for years, trying to put that genie back in the bottle is impossible. The rocket has blasted off the pad!

Of course, the arrogant suits running the "New York Times" are delusional if they think that their content is so well written compared to other news sources, that discerning readers will pay the extra fee to get their quality journalism.

Wake up and smell the coffee fools. It’s not going to happen in the real world of instant Internet communications. Besides, axed "Times" journalists have moved online to "Politico" and "The Huffington Post, providing the same level of quality journalism as when they worked for the "The (stuffy) New York Times," that foolishly got rid of their quality writers to save a few bucks.
Free news flows through the matrix of the Internet at the speed of light. The most popular news websites are CNN, Yahoo, MSNBC, and "The Washington Post."
CNN streams raw footage of disasters as they happen. Anything and everything is well covered by excellent reporters and commentators.

So, how are printed newspapers going to survive as more news websites pop up selling advertising. It’s a brave new world of global Internet communications. Printing ink on paper is expensive and bad for the environment.

Yes, I still subscribe to a newspaper as a holdover from the past. And I still prefer reading books to the new species of electronic books on readers like the Kindle. I like the feel of the paper in my hands to a cold tablet PC.

As an old man, some things like curling up in front of the fireplace with a good book are lifelong pleasurable experiences. Reading my newspaper in the bathroom every morning is part of my beginning of the day ritual.

Indeed, the Internet is an unstoppable runaway train. It has changed communications forever–blasting news and information into cyberspace, available at one’s fingertips.
The marriage of television and the Internet is right around the corner. Clearly, there are so many free alternatives to paying for news, why would the "New York Times" think that they are that special? They’re not.

The answer to the problem of replacing lost ad revenues lies in slowly raising Internet advertising pricing by working out a rating system like television uses to set ad rates. Nickel and diming people for using a news website is petty and will not come close to replacing lost ad revenue.

There are a few websites worth paying for such as IMPD Pro which I use as a movie critic. And, I pay a monthly fee to belong to Rhapsody, a music downloading site. It enables me to preview music before buying it on a download to CD.

Paying for news services is doomed to failure. There is so much free news in cyberspace, it boggles the mind. Those dunderheads at "The New York Times" need a reality check.

The entire news publishing field has moved or is moving to the Internet for free. It’s time to face the fact that old fashioned newspapers are on life support. In a couple of years, they will be a quaint thing of the past.