On Writing, Reading, and (shudder) obtaining "Content"

During my walk today,* two things collided in my head, producing lots of ideas and resulting in a series of posts.  First, Breakfast with Pandora has been discussing writing and pay (here and here).   Second, Time magazine recently had an article about how to save newspapers.**

The problems for newspapers have been well documented.  Repeatedly.  The part that bothers me the most is the demise of investigative journalism - because really understanding an issue takes time, and money, and we desperately need to understand the issues, particularly when such huge sums of money are being thrown around to "solve" them (Will the huge sums really solve things?  We'll have to see, and hope).

I don't think that we'll ever return to the widespread days of print newspaper subscriptions.  First, people are too used to the internet.  Second, I don't know about you, but my day only allows for so much "sit, flip through something, and read" time, and I'm going to spend that more on books than anything else.  As our lives speed up, there's less of that time available. 

I agree with Time in that, in making all their articles (I hate the word "content") free, online, newspapers and magazines have made a big mistake.  The article mentions that, when Time used to publish, online, through AOL, they got paid.  This was no longer the case when they got their own website.***  Out of the major print media companies, it seems that the Wall Street Journal is the only company that requires a subscription to read their articles online.  Their subscriptions increased by 7% last year.

Breakfast with Pandora also mentions another problem with online writing in his recent reading of blogs at Salon: 

As for blogging, I spent much of the past month obsessed with Open Salon, which is a community of bloggers, most of whom are really good writers, and the rest of whom have some pretty compelling stories to tell...

... I've never felt as if a set of bloggers were more exploited by a big media company than those worthy scribblers of Open Salon. Open Salon has got a good thing going: they give you a free blog and the opportunity to get on the featured front page. And that's it.

Open Salon gets a whole lot of eyeballs and large potential for advertising revenue. I mean, this group of writers is collectively better on a day-to-day basis than all newspapers and most print magazines.

I have come to believe that good writers should be compensated for good writing...

He's writing from a professional writer's viewpoint.  I'm writing from a reader's viewpoint - the sort of reader that loves reading thoughtful, well researched writing. 

Now, there's a lot of that for free on the web.  For instance, there's more to read on musicals and the history of musicals online than there is in my local library.  Some is written by well-educated fans, and some is written by professionals (for instance, the author of Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals teaches the history of Musical Theater at the Boston Conservatory).  I'm blessed with a bounty of musical knowledge, both online and off. 

Solutions?  How can writers get paid for their writing when there's so much good writing available for free? 

This is a series so I don't have to answer anything in post #1 (grin).

* Written a week ago.

** Oh, and third, I'm taking it easy today in order to be ready to go to Asheville tomorrow with dear husband and daughter to check out the university there for her - so I have time to write.  Of course, you probably won't see this article until sometime next week because I have to clean it up and add totally irrelevant flower/cat pictures (because I like posts with pictures, that's why). 

*** I should mention that I do read the print version of Time.  However, it's my mother's subscription that she hands on to me so that doesn't do them any good.

Comments

[Alex]

Jon Stewart recently attacked MSNBC for failing to report the real news. It started as a joke on the Daily Show and ended with a pointed plea for the mainstream media to research and report real news.

I think it's sad that our news-for laughs has more integrity and a better research department than the supposedly "real news."

Too many people look for news "now" than news "Comprehensive."

[M Light]

All true. I'm glad that at least the news-for-laughs has integrity and good research.