Pay For News and Information? The Audacity!

Ya know, I'm actually beginning to think that "The Onion" may, in fact, really be the "America's Finest News Source", as their banner head suggests.  It's at least as good as some of the stuff on cable.

Here's their take on the New York Times paywall, which went up last week.

Last week, I addressed the issue of the shaky ground that newspapers were standing on these days, especially since the number of people who actually care about what's going on around them seems to be declining precipitously.

Bottom line: running a newspaper costs money.

A few other newspapers have found some creative ways to generate revenue in an era where folks think that hard-copy "ink on paper" newspapers are dead and that reporters, publishers and web designers should work for free (i.e., click through ads) on the internet.

Stay tuned later this week for a post about one of them.  It solves an immediate "quest for cash" problem but introduces some other issues of a long-term archival nature down the road.