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As I've been saying ...

By David Brauer | 05/13/09

Newspapers' moves to restrict online access — such as the Strib's "Only in the paper" and paywall that PiPress parent MediaNews will erect — are basically about stopping the erosion of print subscribers.

Is it easier to stop the loss of a dollar than gain lots of pennies online? That's the current gambit.

Comments (5)

Submitted by Hiram Foster on May 13, 2009 - 5:01pm.

As others have noted, the problem with the Pioneer Press' online content is that it wasn't all that easy to read when it was free.

Submitted by dan buechler on May 13, 2009 - 5:13pm.

Golly gee and some of those highly paid geezers
who destroyed jobs get to reverse their strategy midstream and still keep their highly paid jobs. Its a wonderful world.
Actually its not too bad thanks to minnpost, salon and slate.

Submitted by Bill Kellett on May 13, 2009 - 5:23pm.

Newspapers, with their lock on local advertisers, used to have a very lucrative franchise. The internet has changed the equation forever.
Naturally newspaper news gatherers feel themselves and their employers irreplaceable. They're not. The answer to the question of where will the news come from when the last newspaper is shuttered has already been answered. Anybody heard of CNN? Or Al Jazeera? Or NBC? Or any other news organization such as Comedy Central?
What ever happened to the Newsreel? You used to be able to attend a movie and be treated to ten minutes of news of the world. Gone forever.

Submitted by Paul Scott on May 14, 2009 - 7:55am.

It is really kind of remarkable that an ostensibly intelligent reader of this poster would suggest that news gathering is the product delivered by CNN, NBC or Comedy Central. We may be in worse trouble than we realize.

Submitted by Dick Novack on May 14, 2009 - 9:29am.

What we used to call "hard news" reporting when I took several journalism courses in the 1960's has now lost out in "public popularity" to our entertainment society.

Generations raised on fluff content consider Inside Edition, Entertainment Tonight, and (in their view) the very serious in-depth show Dateline to be the real news sources - a "fact" supported by ad revenues. Far, far, more people in my company get their news by Googling than by reading or watching all other sources combined. To them, if it is online, even from what I would call a wierd website, it is a quotable story. They are forever showing each other "stories" they found online.

Therefore CNN, Al Jazeera, and NBC (or MSNBC) are major credible sources - along with Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.