Newspapers don’t need to own or create everything.

Newspapers can serve a much more valuable role by presenting ALL the sources of information about a particular topic. We can save readers a ton of time by collecting all the best stuff from wherever, excerpt it, and point off.

Organize it by geography (neighborhood) or theme/passion.

And then, what newspapers are LOATH to do, put the excerpt and link NOT in a blog ghetto but on the appropriate web page AND publish an excerpt in appropriate section of the newspaper itself! That kind of promotion is absolutely necessary to raise awareness and drive traffic.

Now, if they are willing to pay–and pay fairly–for this work, then great! But, I won’t hold my breath on that one. There’s loads of precedent (and loads of kvetching among unionized writers) that the pay for “blogging” and internet writing jobs (which is what this sounds like vs. a “newspaper” job) is woefully low. And that’s pretty much true.

Further, what might happen to the content put on these newspaper sites? What if someone wants to use that content (pictures perhaps?) on a site of his/her own–does the newspaper own the content? And what’s wrong with just aggregating this content and sharing traffic with local bloggers?

Part of the problem that newspapers are now facing is that consumers aren’t seeing the value of well-researched journalism, because the end-product isn’t well differentiated. If blogs are free, and there’s not much difference between blogs and “news” (I mean, they’re on the same web site, right?) then why pay for “news?”

And suddenly journalists are all out of a paying gig.

the big problem I see with this is that they have a strong financial incentive NOT to pay them as long as they can get away with it — the vast majority of enterprises trying to “save the news” (for their own financial gain) would collapse if “the suckers” that make these projects possible would just wake up and stop volunteering.

Delia

P.S. Are these people really fools, cretins, with low-intelligence or low-self esteem? Of course not… (they are just naives that don’t realize they are being exploited) D.

If the ad was “We’re looking for [local stringers] in Los Gatos who can write about such things as events in town, school fundraisers, the score of the latest football game. We need someone who would love a forum for reflecting on the latest buzz story in town, or even write things to do for runners, kids, moms, retirees or other groups in town.” – would this be greeted with a reaction of “This could be a fairly big deal, especially if it means the paper will do more than just highlight what the [local stringers] do (i.e. pay them for what they do).”

What makes “blogger” such a super-fantastic-amazing-THIS-IS-BIG word, if “stringer” or “freelancer” is functionally equivalent in the context?