Stories not free, even on Internet
I am perpetually answering the question of why the Standard charges a subscription fee to gain access to our Web site. It’s a question I answer on seemingly a weekly basis.
It’s frequently pointed out that other newspapers have free Web sites while the Standard has the audacity to charge. The reason for this couldn’t be more basic.
As a business, the Standard has a product which it sells for a certain price. It just so happens our product is stories. Therefore it makes no sense to put our product ‘ stories ‘ on the Internet for people to read for free.
It would be like Bridgestone giving away its tires. It would be like McDonald’s giving away its food. It would be like JCPenney’s giving away its clothes. You get the point.
For folks who enjoy reading the Standard online, and want to continue to have this privilege, there needs to be a fee. As much as I enjoy writing, I’m not going to come to work for free. There is a cost associated with collecting and distributing the news, and a very small portion of that cost is paid by the people who read it.
If you’ll notice, a number of newspapers with free Web sites only give you access to stories that day. If you want to go back and look up a story that’s two weeks old, there’s often a charge, sometimes as much as $3 a story.
The Standard has a flat subscription fee that gives readers access to every story in our database. And truth be told, paying $36 for an entire year’s worth of local news on the Standard’s Web site is the best deal in town. I’ve paid $65 to see a doctor for five minutes.
I should also stress that anyone who subscribes to the newspaper can get free access to our Web site. What a deal.
The talk about the Standard’s Web site is especially appropriate because I predict there will be a day, maybe 25 years from now, when there are no more newspapers. This is not to suggest the Standard won’t exist. Rather it’s to say we will move from printed page to computer screen.
Every day, computers are becoming a greater part of our lives. We can bank on the Internet, shop on the Internet, even find people to marry on the Internet.
Newspapers already have a firm online base, as virtually every newspaper has a Web site. The next transition will be making the Web site the main product and the printed newspaper the secondary one.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Just look what having an Internet-only product would do for newspapers.
For starters, the Standard wouldn’t have to maintain a fleet of newspaper carriers to drive to all corners of the county three times a week. Delivering 156 editions a year to thousands of homes ‘ in the middle of the night ‘ is no easy feat. Delivering the online version of the Standard is as easy a clicking a mouse here at the newspaper office.
There would be no high-dollar printing press to maintain, no expensive ink to buy by the barrel, no newsprint to purchase by the 700-pound roll.
Truth be told, I think newspapers and the Internet are a great match. Online polls give readers an easy way to find out what people think about hot-button issues. Readers can provide instant feedback at the end of every story. And there’s the ability to correspond with other readers ‘ or even the reporter who wrote the story ‘ in live chatrooms.
All this makes a newspaper Web site a great forum to not only convey the news but to exercise free speech and exchange ideas (hopefully with some degree of intelligence). It’s the premise on which newspapers were founded.
It’s a bold new frontier for newspapers. Just don’t expect it to be free.
James Clark is editor of the Standard. He can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at editor@southernstandard.com.