Information Wants to Be Expensive

[Commentary] With newspapers in cities across the country on the brink, an old idea is being resurrected in the hope of saving them: They should charge for access to their journalism on the Internet. This is a great idea, but about 10 years late. People are happy to pay for news and information however it's delivered, but only if it has real, differentiated value. Traders must have their Bloomberg or Thomson Reuters terminal. Lawyers wouldn't go to court without accessing the Lexis or West online service. Yet few city newspapers try to generate revenues directly from readers online, a huge problem now that advertising is so weak in print and online. Something needs to change if these newspapers and their large news staffs are to survive. It's past time for news companies to regain the courage to ask readers whether what they produce is worth paying for online. If it's not, less news will be produced, and news companies and their journalists will have only themselves to blame.