No Music in That News, Part 2

David Carr followed up his earlier NYT piece with a second (reg. required) on the same theme - young readers and their relationship with free online content.

Here's the money quote: "Now if I can just figure out how to render this column as an electronic tone poem, I can get in on the action."

In admitting publicly that under-20s are willing and happy to pay for ring tones, Carr has highlighted a stark reality: Young readers will not pay to read, at least online. They don't want the product Mr. Carr has on offer.

Like those good folks who built buggies, he might have to get used to seeing his craft suffer some serious blows - and potentially become uneconomical. (In fairness to buggy-makers, there are some bespoke builders out there getting big money for custom carriages.)

He doesn't seem to understand that, though: "But in giving away content to match the Web's unrecompensed goodies, traditional print media is eating its own lunch." They're not, really. They're trying - desperately - to get online readers to value their work at something more than zero.

But many readers aren't responding - just as customers didn't respond over time to horses and buggies, the longbow, PopRocks, or leeches (although leeches are enjoying a nice comeback).

Additionally, Mr. Carr's sense of economics might be a bit off, or at least point to the futility of his plaintive cry: In arguing for a 99-cent price point for a column (equating one with an iTunes song download), he could be vastly inflating the value of a columnist's work. At current CPMs of roughly $10 for general news sites, each view of a piece is worth roughly 1 cent - a hundred times less than what he proposes.

Now an argument can be made that a reader might want to read 10 things in a given daily paper, valuing each at 10 cents (1/10 of the Times' cover price), so that an online paper acts as a storehouse for a personalized paper - but that's still 10 times less expensive than his pricing model.

Lastly, the content is being paid for, at market rates, by advertisers. Most papers make the bulk of their money from advertising these days anyway; to send the cover price the way of the dinosaurs will mean a shock to them but not economic ruin. Writers hate this idea, but it's likely the reality.

Television networks rose to become multi-billion-dollar enterprises on the advertising model alone; with so many choices for readers, individual writers' work will struggle to be valued very highly, except in exceptional cases...or as niche products, like $100,000 buggies.

No Music in That News

David Carr has written recently in the New York Times (reg. required) that newspapers might tear a page from the music-industry's playbook and push for (or develop on their own) an iPod-like news device, to bring themselves and readers boldly into the 21st century.

Carr argues that a digital newsreader or tablet will act as the iPod has, and help save news organizations from financial ruin: "As iTunes has demonstrated, there is a vast swath of consumers who are willing to pay for what they want and avoid the moral taint of unauthorized use."

But has Carr got it right?

A song on iTunes is unique and can, now, only be bought there or from another paying service, if the user wants to avoid prosecution. Many songs are still downloaded from free networks, of course, and young listeners would have continued to push up the popularity of Kazaa et al if the music industry hadn't unleased the dogs on them.

News, though, is not unique - the story that might cost me 99 cents on the Times' web site can be had, basically, on OhMyNews or Yahoo or some other site. There will always be free news online, grabbing (especially) young readers' eyeballs and ad dollars. Always.

Young readers have shown again and again that they no longer care for the reputation of the Times, or any other news source. They'll get facts from here, check them over there, read a friend's blog, and decide for themselves. They don't care for the key product characteristic of integrity behind a reputable news organization's story.

They will never pay. Give them a cheap newsreading tablet to try and get them hooked on paying for content, and they'll happily download free content to it all day and night.

The music industry playbook has clearly shown this: The only deterrent to free downloads has been the threat of prosecution. But there won't be any "illegal" news out there, so there's no deterrent.

Carr's model might work for older readers, but it's off-key for young readers. Here's a possible test of his thesis: How many signups for the new Times Select service are under 25?

The Delaware Supreme Court, Anonymity, and Truth

Brietbart reported a few days back that the Delaware Supreme Court had thrown out a lower-court order for Comcast to serve up to plaintiff's lawyers the names of four anonymous posters to a blog site operated by Independent Newspapers Inc., publisher of the Delaware State News. In the obscenity-laced postings, the four had savaged a local councilman and his wife, calling into question his manhood, mental fitness, and other qualities.

The Court ruled that a prima facie case for defamation had to be established before an anonymous critic could be "outed" - and since the postings could only be interpreted as opinion, no case for defamation existed.

Importantly, the Court specifically cited its desire to protect blogging - "the modern equivalent of political pamphleteering" - from any "chilling effect" brought about by aggressive counsel or government agency.

There's a bit of irony here. While so much has been written about talented bloggers, and even more blogs have been launched about how to self-promote and make money, little attention has been paid to anonymous blogging.

In fact, the credibility of the blogger has become the main currency of the genre: As visitors, we get access to the entire blog, comments (warts) and all; links the blogger deems important; a bio; clippings; personal photos; and, for some bloggers, advertisements and the imprimatur they bring.

And what do we do as readers? We filter all this information through our own built-in shock-proof shit detector (tip o' the hat to Ernest) and decide whether we trust the writer or not.

We also get a sense of trust from reading about bloggers and their blogs in professional media (although at times it all does seem to resemble one big mutual-admiration society), and following links to blogs from other bloggers whom we trust.

So while most bloggers are trying to achieve fame and fortune by putting their best, er, foot forward, these four (and I suspect, many others) are putting out earnest comment from behind whatever veil of anonymity the Internet can afford (and for as long as your ISP doesn't get a subpoena).

The Delaware Court has shone a small light on the value anonymous bloggers bring to the debate; we need to think of ways to allow trust to filter out to these bloggers who have turned trust, the currency of blogging, on its head.

They may get linked to, they may even put up personal photos (with black bars across their eyes, of course), but the trust some will deserve (and there will be some) has to come from the only thing that really matters in writing, printing, blogging, or any other form of communication - truth.

We have to train on our built-in shock-proof shit detectors to respond to great writing, sharp insight, searing comment, and truth - and not because Nick or Jeff or Oprah or God has linked to a particular blogger. We can't let style or hipness or buzz or Google Ad clicks be our polestars, or we will indeed be lost.

As we start to deify some bloggers and instinctively ignore others, let's remember that Thomas Paine's thunderous declaration regarding "the times that try men's souls" was signed - not entitled - "Common Sense" (the 16 Crisis essays, published between 1776-1783, were all signed, anonymously, "Common Sense").

The Delaware four were likely not concerned with truth but rather ridicule (I haven't read their posts), and obscenity is never called for. But, ironically, those chuckleheads help point the way to the polestar for the Chinese dissident blogging about human-rights abuses, the wife of an Iraqi detainee tortured by US soldiers, the FEMA employee blowing the whistle on truly dangerous chuckleheads.

It's about truth. Let's never forget that.