From the editor’s desk: Capitalism and the internet
By Pat Caldwell
Saturday, August 15, 2009 9:40 PM PDT
The American economist Thomas Sowell once said: “Capitalism knows only one color: that color is green.”
He also said, “The least productive people are usually the ones who are most in favor of holding meetings.” But that is a different column.
Anyway, Sowell’s capitalism sentiment carries an obvious ring of truth to it; his apt comment does not apply to the newspaper/Internet conjunction.
That’s because, while the Internet is seen as the wave of the future for newspapers, the sad fact is it isn’t generating the kind of cash that papers need in this epoch-changing technology shift.
The Internet paradigm, at least for now, flies in the face of basic capitalism.
Capitalism is about making money; it’s about creating a service that people will seek to purchase.
But when it comes to the Internet and most newspapers, the capitalism theory is thrown out the window. Instead, we give content (our most valuable resource) away for free.
Free. No charge. Here, take it. It will not cost a thing.
If newspapers were all non-profits or we were associated with UNICEF, then giving away content for free would make a great deal of sense.
Yet (at least the last time I checked), we are not.
Reporter’s work hard to find stories; editors work just as hard to help them polish those stories and manage the news product. The effort, the generation of labor, itself should produce some compensation. Generally, you are paid by an employer or the government.
You work. They pay. Simple.
Except with the Internet paradigm, all the hard work by editors and reporters is delivered for free.
And people like it that way. Try to suggest to a group of newspapers executives (who know things) that somehow a system to charge for online content must be found, and there will be an immediate backlash.
Try to suggest it to readers, and you’ll see as similar upheaval.
For readers, the backlash is understandable. It is kind of like what one of my cousins said to me one time: “If you give me free beer all night and then, toward the end, tell me I have to start paying, well I’m not going to take kindly to that.”
Exactly.
News executives, editors and reporters have less excuse to be upset about a cost analysis regarding the Internet. We’re all supposed to know, by the way, about the changing tide of public taste. Instead, for the past decade or more, we’ve been a reactive business, bowing to the next gimmick to gain “more readers.”
Now, we’ve hit bottom. Giving away our treasure (content) for free.
Because we’ve done it for so long, we’re going to have a hard time convincing readers that all of that content they secured at no charge, well, they’re going to have start paying for it.
You often hear cynics and self-proclaimed newspaper experts (which are apparently everywhere — like locust — nowadays) pontificate about how newspapers are dying. The sentiment is simple: The Internet is the wave of the future and it is killing newspapers.
Except more people now read to get information; more people go to a news source for that information. They go online, of course, where (you guessed it) it’s free.
Readership is declining of newspapers because (and I know this is going to be going out on a limb so stick with me) people are getting the same stuff online for free. I don’t put shuttles into orbit. I’m not an Apollo astronaut. I was born and raised in Eastern Oregon, but it doesn’t take a heavy weight to fall on me. Why would anyone buy something when they can get the same thing for free?
P.T. Barnum didn’t know Sowell, but they are both probably doing the same thing — spinning — in their graves when they view the current newspaper/capitalism situation.
The industry leaders will continue to ring their hands, seek gimmicks to gain “more readers” while our credibility as an industry declines.
And, out on the bow of this ship, the band will play on.
Pat Caldwell is the editor of the Argus Observer. He can be contacted at PatC@argusobserver.com. The views and comments in this column are not necessarily the views of the Argus Observer or Wick Communications.
