Come and get it! Free online news!

The announcement today that The New York Times is going to stop charging customers for access to all of its website features -- except for archives between 1922 and 1987 -- is perhaps the surest sign that free information on the internet is the only way to go. The Times, which has the money and clout to do whatever is best for its own interests, determined that it could make more by selling additional advertising than it could by charging customers to access columnists' work and other specialized areas of its website.
That more or less settles the question that has raged in journalism circles for years about whether it makes sense to put so much online for free, which has certainly helped cause circulation to decline. It's now a fundamental reality of the newspaper business that we either thrive online -- and find the advertising to support it -- or we go belly up.
I don't have any doubt that newspapers have a future online. After all, people will always want to know what's happening in their own communities, as well as in the world beyond. The issue that remains cloudy is how to bring in sufficient revenue to keep reporters, editors and others employed in delivering the news, however they do it.
Fortunately, securing the cash for all of this us someone else's job. My job is to get the news and write it up. This blog is something ancillary to all of that, and yet I think it also holds some glimpse of our future at the same time. We're surely going to be more personal, more interactive, quicker to get the news out to our readers, and ready to engage with readers who want to challenge our assumptions and question our choices.
I relish all of that, and I'm ready for it. I hope my profession is, too.

*******
Copyright 2007. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com