A solution for pay walls for internet media content: How newspapers can survive the internet

Somebody has to pay for the gathering of news and the dissemination of intelligent comment. Or does anyone, given that social media are displacing top-down reportage? The Brisbane flood? Just tap into eye witness reports and find out for yourself. Latest cricket opinion. Just tap into a barmy army member's ball by ball report written on a iphone in between pints. Who needs a newspaper? If we need newspapers, then why can't they be free given that advertising can pay for their production?

Well, advertisers need readership: they won't pay for content no one reads. One of the best US papers, the New York Times, made itself into one of the best in the world in only twenty years, has only a million or so subscribers, and it's not enough. There will be a paywall protecting their internet content this month, although quite how the paywall will work is still a secret. The Times, however, tried the paywall and was deserted by on-line readers. Too expensive in comparison to what's on-line for free, even though Murdoch tried to value add content for the on-line readership.

In the days when I bought physical reading matter daily, I would read The Times one day, the Telegraph the next, the Economist the next, the New Scientist once a week, the Prospect now and then, and so on. I would go into a library to catch up on Time and Newsweek. It's out of the question for me and probably for anyone to pay all these yearly on-line subscriptions to get the varied reading experience one wants. A year's subscription up front is too much. Paying by the issue would be fine but the costs of managing these on-line micro payments is too high for both buyer and seller.

So how can newspapers and periodicals charge readers for their on-line editions and still retain them?

The answer is simple. Pay readers for their contributions to the on-line community attached to these publications. I belong to the New York Times network Times People. Suppose I received a micro credit for every article I recommended, every commentary that another reader liked, every new reader I introduced to the network, every review I passed on through Facebook or Twitter. A diligent and thoughtful member of Times People should be able to reduce his or her on-line subscription to the paper by say 50% or 60%, or even by 100% by being a participatory reader. If this were in operation for all on-line media content, I am much more likely to opt for a subscription to anyone of them. That way the peripheral cloud of information surrounding on-line news and opinion might actually be worth more to the paper than it is now.

Does this sound like a solution? Let me know.