Newspapers Take Another Look Charging for Online Content

Posted by Ross Reynolds on
Friday, February 6th, 2009 at 8:11 am

Al Tompkins at the Poynter Institute reviews stories about the Dallas Morning News, rumblings at the New York Times and Online Journalism Review.

“Giving away information for free on the Internet while still charging 50 cents to $1 for the print version of the paper was one of the most fundamentally flawed business decisions of the past 25 years,” says Prof. Paul J. MacArthur, who teaches public relations and journalism at Utica College. “Newspapers told their paying customers that the information truly had no value. They told their paying customers that they were suckers. Why would anyone pay 50 cents for something he or she can get for free? This poorly conceived and obviously flawed strategy has helped put the newspaper industry into its current financial condition and hastened the demise of many publications.”