Tall Pay Walls May Limit Community Access to Information

By Rick Edmonds

A number of commentators, led by blogger Alan Mutter, have noted lately that the paid online content bandwagon seems to be stalling into a lot of talk and not much action. But what if newspapers rally and act in unison to make much of what they offer online available only to those who pay?

Suppose, too, that they bring off the unlikely feat of keeping the best of their work from free-to-the-user competitors, aggregators, searches and links?

That works fine for the top tiers of specialized business information offered by The Wall Street Journal or Financial Times. But it doesn't seem to me to fit at all with the traditional public purpose of the press in helping provide for "the information needs of communities in a democracy," as the title of a current Knight Foundation study commission puts it.

In the good-old-days business model, newspapers reached a high percentage of households in their communities. (In the fragmented here and now, they still do that better than most competitors). Papers were not free, but they were cheap -- a dime or a quarter. Summaries distributed by the wires, used for rip-and-read radio newscasts, amplified the reach of the newspaper's journalism.

With the rising costs of production and distribution and declining advertiser interest, it is in the cards that print papers will cost more, as has been the trend of recent years. Circulation has fallen and papers are edging toward serving a more elite, educated audience, as does The New York Times.

As the publishers love to say, however, total reach -- including those reading free news Web site -- may be higher than ever. That is usually presented as part of a business case to advertisers, but from an access viewpoint, digital distribution reaches interested readers who can't pay. Blogs, links and the like get the work in front of young adults and others who have gone digital-first in news consumption.

 

Charging for online content would depress those numbers, and the higher the wall the greater that effect. Bad for business and bad for the paper's contribution to informed democracy, as well.

 

We also find the AP chiming in with a murky plan that may limit the availability of some of its own and member content, making it available only through micropayments or pay walls.

 

I don't want to go giddy with "information on the Internet wants to be free" rhetoric. But it may also be worth noting in this discussion that foundations and other donors progressively underwriting quality journalism insist that the stories be available for free (even if also presented, as have been various Pro Publica projects, in for-profit venues).

 

Spinning out ventures -- specialty publication or Web sites -- from the core has been one of a handful of healthy business developments for the industry in recent years. New premium digital ad-ons may be where a toned-down paid content movement ends up.

 

But at the end of the day, access to newspapers' best work needs to be more like a concert in a centrally located park, less like an exclusive night spot with a velvet rope.