All COMM classes read: Why we call this blog The Mackerel Wrapper

To see why, click on this link http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20090216,00.html or look at the cover of this week's Time magazine on the newstand (or in SCI-Benedictine's Becker Library).

Read Times' cover story while you're at it. It's by former Time managing editor Walter Isaacson, and it's called "How to Save Your Newspaper." Isaacson's idea is to charge for Web content. My first reaction was something I can't post to a public medium. But I read on. Isaacson makes a good case.

Newspapers, he said, are going broke. Literally. (Look at the Chicago Tribune, currently in Chapter 11 bankruptcy.) And with the recession, advertising no longer supports a news operation. (Look at the print edition of Time. It's very thin. So are all the magazines and newspapers.) Fewer ads means less newshole. We don't need to belabor the point. It's been trending that way for years.

Isaacson's contribution to this disucssion is technological. He thinks a way can be found for readers to pay for content like music consumers pay for downloads:

... The key to attracting online revenue, I think, is to come up with an iTunes-easy method of micropayment. We need something like digital coins or an E-ZPass digital wallet — a one-click system with a really simple interface that will permit impulse purchases of a newspaper, magazine, article, blog or video for a penny, nickel, dime or whatever the creator chooses to charge.

What won me over was another idea of Isaacson's, and I think it might be intriguing to you guys as well. Producers of content, the writers and photographers and graphic designers and other "creatives," could benefit under Isaacson's business model as well as publishers. He says:

Under a micropayment system, a newspaper might decide to charge a nickel for an article or a dime for that day's full edition or $2 for a month's worth of Web access. Some surfers would balk, but I suspect most would merrily click through if it were cheap and easy enough.

The system could be used for all forms of media: magazines and blogs, games and apps, TV newscasts and amateur videos, porn pictures and policy monographs, the reports of citizen journalists, recipes of great cooks and songs of garage bands. This would not only offer a lifeline to traditional media outlets but also nourish citizen journalists and bloggers. They have vastly enriched our realms of information and ideas, but most can't make much money at it. As a result, they tend to do it for the ego kick or as a civic contribution. A micropayment system would allow regular folks, the types who have to worry about feeding their families, to supplement their income by doing citizen journalism that is of value to their community.

When I used to go fishing in the bayous of Louisiana as a boy, my friend Thomas would sometimes steal ice from those machines outside gas stations. He had the theory that ice should be free. We didn't reflect much on who would make the ice if it were free, but fortunately we grew out of that phase. Likewise, those who believe that all content should be free should reflect on who will open bureaus in Baghdad or be able to fly off as freelancers to report in Rwanda under such a system.

I say this not because I am "evil," which is the description my daughter slings at those who want to charge for their Web content, music or apps. Instead, I say this because my daughter is very creative, and when she gets older, I want her to get paid for producing really neat stuff rather than come to me for money or decide that it makes more sense to be an investment banker.

I say this, too, because I love journalism. I think it is valuable and should be valued by its consumers. Charging for content forces discipline on journalists: they must produce things that people actually value. I suspect we will find that this necessity is actually liberating. The need to be valued by readers — serving them first and foremost rather than relying solely on advertising revenue — will allow the media once again to set their compass true to what journalism should always be about.

Will anything like this actually happen? It's hard to say. But it's clear the present business model, which Isaacson compares to lemmings diving off a cliff, isn't working anymore.