Newstradamus

The Los Angeles Times' David Lazarus focuses on the guillotine hanging over the head of the news business in his article about free information in the digital age. He interviews a bunch of teens who say they would never pay for news online.

He quotes Phoebe, 15: ""My grandparents subscribe to a lot of newspapers. If I want to read a newspaper, I go online, but I wouldn't pay for it. Our generation doesn't pay for things on the Internet."

Says Lazarus: "What Phoebe meant, of course, is that her generation doesn't pay for information on the Net. Music, movies, games — all those things have clear monetary value. Anything you take in by reading, not so much. 'Information should be free,' declared Corey, 18, echoing a sentiment I encounter a lot online, particularly among bloggers, who feel a perverse sense of entitlement to other people's work."

People think advertising sustains news online, but far from it. While a few daily newspapers make as much as 15% of their overall revenue from Web ads, most are in the 5% range. Sure, there are free print dailies that can make a profit on advertising alone, but they are either in large metro areas or non-competitive markets, or — because the greatest expense at news-gathering companies goes for people who do the gathering — have bare-bones staffs.

"Rely solely on the Net for circulation and revenue, as some pundits have argued, and the unavoidable fact is that you can't support a news-gathering operation this large or resourceful," says Lazarus, one of 890 on the L.A. Times editorial staff. "You'd have to make do with significantly fewer people, fewer (if any) overseas bureaus, fewer investigations, less original content, less of the watchdog sort of thing that readers consistently say they rely on newspapers to provide."

People will pay through the nose for a broadband connection, but not for the information that is accessed on that connection. The New York Times seems to have been unable to sustain a payment plan for its unique content, and the Wall Street Journal may give up making people pay for its Web site. If they haven't figured it out, then a revenue model that can sustain professional news-gathering operations in the digital age remains to be found.

If there isn't an answer soon, then by the time Lazarus' teens are in their 40s and their parents and grandparents are gone, professional news organizations may be, too. What will that mean for the free flow of information that is the lifeblood of a democracy? I shudder to think. The blogosphere says fine, the "people" will provide the news. Sure ... between doing their regular jobs, I suppose.