Web Letters: No Such Thing as Free News

Tom Curley, AP's president and CEO, confirms that Huffington Post pays for the Associated Press service and is one of the few business models that is actually working.

You can see the Charlie Rose interview and read Arianna’s post here.

Huffington Post has a blend of news content from AP, blogging about the news, links to other sources, search engines, and online advertising that is funding the whole operation.

Google has a multimillion-dollar arrangement with AP in order to carry its content and also chooses to monetize the content with online advertising.

Tom Curley’s heartburn is not with Google but with what happens to the information after consumers use the search engine, find AP stories and then post them elsewhere.

According to Arianna Huffington, those that will embrace the linked economy have a chance to succeed. Those that build walls around their content will be overtaken by disruptive innovation, forcing out the old as consumers flow to the new.

Gary Amstutz

Lake Isabella, CA

Google provides web links to stories that the papers publish online, not the stories themselves. If the publisher charges for the article then the user has to pay even if they used a link from Google. If they don't charge, then that's on them.

Shannon Watters

Kula, HI

Though we get a print subscription, I'm bothered that I'm reading this very article for free. Honestly, I usually read The Nation online now. The print edition is a waste of postage and paper, but you don't offer e-subscriptions that I can find.

[Editor's Note: The Subscribe link on the left of the homepage takes you to this page, where you can click on I'D RATHER GO GREEN for an online-only subscription.]

Somehow the old discussion about how the news is dominated by wealthy corporations doesn't rise us in the discussion about how to support journalists. I wish there were a way to support my favorite journalists directly, with some portion going to the editors who frame their work.

Ann Buckingham

McMinnville, OR

Mr. Moran may think that allowing print news providers to charge for their content and sue those who distribute "their" content for free might save his vaunted newspapers, but the actual experiences of newspapers who have tried pay-oriented content proves otherwise. Remember the New York Times's "Times Select" option, which failed so miserably that the Times was forced to restore their free services after only about a year?)

Mr. Moran seems to forget that it's not just wealthy or middle-class people who rely on newspapers to survive; it's just as much working-class people who may not have the disposable cash to pay every time they link to an article from the Washington Post or San Francisco Chronicle. Why does he think that adding even more charges and constraints will somehow rescue newspapers from their own demise?

Also, considering the efforts of citizen journalists using free Internet sites to do the kind of journalism that the newspapers have simply abandoned of late due to fear of abandoning their advertising base, it could be that no means of revenue stream will be able to save newspapers from their irrelevance in this world of instant Internet access.

Propietary journalism will work only in the way that proprietauy software in the face of open source will work--that is, not too well. Rather than finding new ways to limit access and gouge working people for newspapers that still don't meet the crucial needs of readers, perhaps Mr. Moran would be better off to support breaking the monopoly of large corporate business and conservative interests in the media, and to support community-based media--both print and online--more reflective of their needs.

Anthony Kennerson

Lafayette, LA

For many people nowadays, newspapers are a big expense. While newspapers have been dying for a long time, the recession/depression may put the nails in their coffin. Also, some of my neighbors are from Latin America and do not read or speak English that well. There are very few newspapers in their driveways in the early morning.

Television is the most available news source for the average person and online the news source for people with computers. There are no secrets because of the Internet, and there are other sources besides official news organizations.

"Free trade" is about cutting "labor costs," and reporters too have become the victims of economic fashions.

Pervis James Casey

Riverside, CA