I don’t know if it was a big techie secret that few if any journalists were let in on, but the light dawned for me when I attended (virtually) a recent webinar put on by my friend Birgit Pauli-Haack, who runs Pauli Systems, LC in Naples, Fla.

Birgit demonstrated it via Google Analytics on two attractive real-life sites. I was jolted, and appalled, to discover that one site had a scrolldown rate of 5 percent, the other 6 percent.

This means that of the readers who call up the first site, only 5 percent bother to scroll down from the first screenful they see.

Too much hard work, apparently, to click that down arrow!

I was petrified to discover what the rate would be on my own site, www.ourblook.com, as we have amassed a tremendous amount of material: 320-plus interviews of academics, journalists, business leaders and top professionals on various issue topics. You have to scroll down or move around the site to see a lot of this.

Our rate turned out to be 16 percent – gratifyingly higher than the samples, but still, this means that just one of six readers on our site scrolls down. Of course I don’t have the faintest idea what the rate would be for other sites, as this is locked into their own Google Analytics codes.

But it also means that our site, and probably lots of other sites, needs a redesign. The lesson I took away is that you have one shot – AND ONLY ONE SHOT – to get prospective readers to read, and that’s by what you offer on the first screenful that pops up when the site gets opened. The more elements (promos or items), the better. We have several elements but a Joomla template I’ve seen has 20. That’s the direction I’d like to go in.

Let’s take a look at Politico, which I think is a terrific news and discussion site. When I call it up as I write this, I see one dominant element with large photo (“GOP finds governing isn’t easy”) and parts of three video buttons. That’s all. When I scroll down another screenful, all of a sudden I see 12 promos, and many of them I’d love to open up. If Politico has a good scrolldown rate, and I hope it does, and maybe it does because its loyal readers would know they have to look around, these stories would be read. But if it has a low scrolldown rate like (I guess) many others, these stories would be largely wasted.

This reminds me of my newspaper days when we poor hacks vaguely were aware that lots of readers stopped reading when a story jumped. We didn’t think this applied to us because our efforts, ha-ha, were so brilliantly written that how could anyone not follow the jump?

Then I became a Gannettoid working in the same headquarters building with (though not for) USA Today, and while it was fashionable for the journalism industry to look down on USAT, if not sneer, in fact it was brilliantly proactive. In a revolutionary move for papers, it limited jumps to one per section front – the so-called cover story – as it attempted to get people to like the product, find it easy to navigate and read more of it.

So now we find ourselves in a similar situation: the people who can’t summon up the effort to follow a jump are the same ones who can’t summon up the effort to scroll down. It’s appalling to me, this lack of desire and effort. I frankly don’t understand it. But it is what it is, and editors who deal with it and try to beat it will probably be better off.

Oh yes, how to find that perhaps humiliating scrolldown rate:

1) Start on your Analytics Report Dashboard,
2) On the left side click on Content,
3) Then click on the expanding sub-navigation In-Page Analytics,
4) And there will be a readout at bottom saying X% clicks below.

P.S. I will respond to any reader comments (even the inevitable ones telling me how dumb I am.)

Gerry Storch is editor and administrator of OurBlook – “blook” meaning a cross between a blog and a book. He was a feature writer with the Detroit News and Miami Herald, Accent section editor and newsroom investigative team leader for the News, and sports editor/business editor for Gannett News Service. He has a B.A. in political science and M.A. in journalism, both from the University of Michigan. This is his third article for OJR.

The company announced it was beginning a partnership with Hearst to introduce local online editions in the newspaper publisher’s four largest markets, including San Francisco Chronicle’s SFGate, the Houston’s Chronicle’s Chron.com, the San Antonio Express-News’ MySan Antonio.com, and Seattlepi.com. Essentially, headlines will be pulled into the main sports page, highlighting local content from Bleacher Report’s citizen journalists.

For the newspapers involved, the partnership represents an extra stream of advertising revenue and, most importantly, a commitment to increasing coverage of local sports.

In many ways, the success or failure of this partnership will help determine whether citizen journalism is the “integral piece,” as cited by many experts, that will help newspapers both survive and prosper in the current media landscape.

Sports pages are a particularly excellent venue for this test. They lure the coveted young and middle-aged demographic who are passionate and vocal about their favorite teams and favorite sports … and more than willing to provide their written opinions for free.

While citizen journalists such as these might look, think and act like paid, professional journos, they’re not – at least in the traditional sense – and not just in the salary department.

Indiana University journalism professor David Weaver doesn’t even think citizen journalists should be the correct term in this discussion. “Citizen communicators” would be better, he says, because “without the training and education that most journalists have, most citizens cannot qualify as journalists.”

In a project conducted by OurBlook.com, Prof. Weaver and other experts around the country shared their thoughts on the pros and cons of citizen journalism, and its possible role helping newspapers. Here are some comments.

The Positive

“The newspapers that survive will be the ones that make the most of the benefits of the online world. Citizen journalism can in many cases provide free content and the internet provides the ability to reach a much larger audience. The old media that combine their resources with the advantages of new media will thrive. The old media that try to cling to their old methods of doing things will die.” — Derek Clark, who runs GeekPolitics.com.

“Probably some events get reported by citizen journalists that would not be reported without them. Reporters can’t be everywhere and cannot know about all events taking place in their communities. In that sense, citizen journalism may help to broaden the
kind of events that are reported.” — Prof. David Weaver.

“With smaller staffs chasing fewer stories, citizen journalists could help local papers keep a broader mix of stories and community reporting in front of readers. Citizen journalism can be a powerful tool for reporting hyperlocal news (news that is specific to one community) because people care about their community and have a hunger for finding out what is going on.” — Thom Clark, president of the Community Media Workshop in Chicago.

“Are you a local newspaper? 90 percent-plus of your income from print adverts targeted at people in the area? Then you should be looking for the local citizen journalists who sit
next to their police scanner and report on the drug busts and local fires. Assume you will have to invest in improving their writing skills, be relaxed about them publishing elsewhere, and pay them enough money to make it worth their while to give you first option on material.” — Brian McNeil, pioneering Wikinews journalist.

“Citizen journalism can help local newspapers survive by making them a more interactive product. Readers who post comments, articles and photos on their local newspaper’s web site might feel a stronger connection to the paper and be more likely to read the print version and the online version of the paper.” — Larry Atkins, adjunct professor of journalism in Arcadia University’s English, Communications and Theatre Department.

The Negative

“I don’t think citizen journalism should dominate or even play a minor role in the operation of mainstream newspapers. I’m sure there is a place for it … a valuable place … in alternative media. I think it’s been the mainstream newspaper industry’s embrace of new editorial formulas and approaches that has been leading to its demise (although) my opinion runs contrary to what most inside and outside the industry believe.” –Adam Stone, publisher of Examiner community newspapers in Putnam and Westchester counties.

“[Citizen communicators] are best at reporting breaking events, and not likely to be very helpful for in-depth, analytical or investigative reporting.” — Prof. Weaver

“Newspapers are brands that bestow credibility, authority, gravitas on their content. I don’t think ‘citizen journalism’ (is there agreement on what this term even means?) can sustain the type of reporting that produces Pulitzer prize winning pieces.” — Richard Roher, president of Roher Public Relations.

“Local newspapers should not rely on citizen journalists to help them survive. Most citizen journalists are not paid anything for their work and lack the motivation to help a for-profit entity continue to make a profit. Citizens cannot and should not be viewed as free labor.” — Dr. Kristen Johnson, assistant professor, Department of Communications, Elizabethtown College, Pa., who has authored several papers on citizen journalism.

Gerry Storch is editor/administrator of www.ourblook.com , a media analysis/public issues discussion site that bridges the gap between a blog and a book. He has been a feature writer with the Detroit News and Miami Herald, Accent section editor and newsroom investigative team leader with the News, and sports editor and business editor for Gannett News Service. He holds a B.A. in political science and M.A. in journalism, both from the University of Michigan.

The media shield bill that frequently seems poised to whisk through Congress, but has incurred several discomfiting delays, is a bad idea unless it gets one big change.

And isn’t it odd that the shield bill is revving up with its sprint-to-the-finish momentum, and the mainstream media would be gaining a significant new power, just when …

Just when these same media are declining precipitously in readership and finances, are at an all-time low in public believability as measured by the recent Pew research report, and have relatively few reporters left investigative or otherwise who would avail themselves of such a law.

Let’s call it for what it is, a power grab. As many states already have their own shield law, this is an attempt to cram one down the throats of those who have declined to grant the media such a privilege, or have done so in tepid fashion. If it passes as is, the press would have virtually unlimited power in reporting.

Back in the ’80s, I would have been a kneejerk and enthusiastic supporter of this bill. I was fortunate to be the leader of an investigative team at the Detroit News when it was a big, robust paper … the nation’s ninth largest daily, and the seventh largest Sunday edition. I oversaw half a dozen reporters and could tap more if needed. So from the stories we did, I think I’m well enough aware of the need for confidential sources and to protect them. Often, there’s no other way to expose wrongdoing.

That was then, now is now. Now I’ve been out of the journalism biz for eight years and have a hopefully broader view.

The big change I’d like to see is this: if the story goes to trial, the judge should have the discretion to disallow the confidentiality protection of the sources if the reporter has made any significant errors or if the sources’ information is wrong or unfair.

If the reporter has screwed up or been dishonest or been suckered, why should he/she be protected?

Without this change, the law is a bad idea for the public because the rights of the subjects of the stories and possibly others affected are totally ignored. And it might be a bad idea for the press itself because one can easily foresee it backfiring during a libel trial that centers on wrong and harmful information.

Imagine the press attorney smirkingly telling the jury that ha-ha, no we’re not going to tell you where this bad information came from because we don’t have to, and no you can’t hear from these sources themselves to make sure the reporters didn’t goof in claiming what was confided to them. Juries don’t like parties in a case with their noses in the air, or sensing that the deck has been stacked, and the reporter defendants might get an unpleasant surprise when they hear the verdict.

The glitches in the shield law’s consideration in recent years have centered on national security provisions and whether bloggers et al would be included for eligibility in this shielding. The various sides all had worthy considerations, and these aspects have been amply debated.

What’s being rushed through with no attention is the underlying basis of the bill … that reporters are perfect little angels who would never ever abuse the use of confidential sources, and that these sources are always totally honest and aboveboard with no hidden agenda.

Anyone who wishes to openly make that argument, be my guest.

The efficacy of the bill depends upon the public trusting reporters, yet the public doesn’t trust reporters.

More sophisticatedly, the argument is made that only the most experienced, the most talented, the most determined and the most ethical reporters would be doing the investigative stories that would be protected, and therefore the law is needed to safeguard these paragons.

So how do you explain what happened at the Los Angeles Times?

In 2008, the Times was forced to retract a story, and reporter Chuck Philips publicly apologized, after the investigative website Smoking Gun exposed the fact that a jailbird confidential source he had relied on had given him forged documents in the case of an attack on rap star Tupac Shakur in which music executive Sean “Diddy” Combs was implicated.

The story was flat-out wrong and big star Philips … why, he had won a Pulitzer Prize … had been duped like the rawest rookie.

Yet if Smoking Gun hadn’t been around to help, and if the federal shield bill had been in effect, even someone as powerful as Combs would have been helpless to win redress and clear his name, since he undoubtedly would have been classified as a public figure. He and any other innocent person in a similar situation would have virtually no recourse as the victim of a false, harmful story based on false, harmful information from a shielded confidential source.

In two editorials since then that … surprise, surprise … soundly endorsed the shield bill, the Times somehow “forgot” to mention this embarrassing but relevant incident. If the paper cannot be trusted in its explications concerning the bill, how can it be trusted in its operations with unnamed sources that same bill would protect?

Here are three other real-life media situations that if you extrapolate from them, show why the shield law as presently constituted isn’t good.

MICHIGAN FOOTBALL. Last fall, the Detroit Free Press ran a sports expose in which six unidentified current and former University of Michigan football players said they were forced to practice far more than NCAA rules allow.

Anonymous sources should be used only as a last resort … only when there is a significant story being told and there’s no other way to get the information.

To me, in this case it was justified. If the players had gone on the record, they would have been ostracized by their teammates, given verbal abuse by rabid fans for “hurting the team,” and had their lives made a living hell by the vengeful coaches. As a U of M grad, I thought it was an excellent story showing how a once high-class football program is being dragged down into the dirt by a new low-class coaching regime.

So that part’s OK. But suppose … not just in this story, but say a similar story at any paper … that the coach could come up with practice time logs showing he had done nothing wrong, or that the players had some sort of ulterior motive for complaining that wasn’t reported, or the reporter had misunderstood something … the shield law would unfairly protect the slacker reporter and punish the innocent coach.

NYT GETS MCCAIN. In what can only be termed a disgrace and abuse of confidential sources, the New York Times in February 2008 came out with a widely heralded story hinting that the married Sen. John McCain embarked on a romantic affair back in 1999 with lobbyist Vicki Iseman, 31 years younger.

Iseman responded by filing a $27 million libel lawsuit. It was subsequently settled out of court, and the Times … not saying whether it had paid her anything … crowed that it had won a big victory for freedom of the press.

But if the case had been pursued … the paper did not flatly come out and say the two had an affair. There was no straight factual substantiation whatsoever. Indeed, the paper printed denials by both parties … and then rattled on as if the denials didn’t matter, using innuendoes from anonymous sources. It is telling that the Times, in its flimsy response to the suit, said it had been reporting on the “perception” of questionable activity by McCain … i.e., not on any activity itself but the “perception” of it.

Ms. Iseman claimed the story led to “a corresponding deterioration of her interior mental, emotional and physical health.” If she had doctor bills to prove it or any other specific evidence of damage, and the Times couldn’t or wouldn’t produce the sources to justify the story, her lawyers would have had a field day.
Since the Times’ own ombudsman, Clark Hoyt, seemed dismayed by the nonexistent reporting … noting in his column that “although it raised one of the most toxic subjects in politics — sex — it offered readers no proof that McCain and (the woman) had a romance” … Iseman’s lawyers would have enjoyed asking him on the stand to tell the jury why it was justified for the sources to be shielded, and see what he was forced to say.

IT WAS ONLY A MURDER. The Alton, Ill., Telegraph got into a hot spot in 2008 when it received a subpoena from a grand jury demanding to know the identities of five anonymous responders on its website concerning a murder investigation. The state’s attorney believed two of the bloggers could help solve the murder case because from their comments, they seemed to know something about who did it.

The Telegraph, without uttering even a shred of sympathy for the murder victim’s family, or at least any sympathy that was visible in a standard Google search, said the bloggers were “sources” akin to someone making a telephone tip in the old days, and that such sources were protected by the state’s shield law, so sorry, we won’t help you. The paper may have neglected to use the phrase “chilling effect” in its brief; maybe in Alton, they don’t know it’s virtually mandatory that “chilling effect” be posited by the press as a dire warning if anyone dares challenge it legally.

Since then, a judge ruled the paper had to identify the two relevant bloggers but not the other three.

If a family member or good friend of yours was murdered, and an anonymous source in the media knew who did it, how would you feel if the paper not only didn’t care but also refused to let law enforcement interview this source to bring justice?

That’s power of the press, all right, to possibly keep a murderer from being prosecuted. Too much power for my taste.

P.S. Please, please don’t bother bringing up the supposed plight of the Northwestern University journalism students as a justification for a shield law.

Let’s see now, these are the students who gave a guy money some of which he used to buy cocaine after he obligingly furnished them the murder confession they wanted to hear in their quest to free a convicted defendant of that crime so they could get good grades, only afterward the gentleman inconveniently recanted his confession and the district attorney’s office has started investigating the students’ investigation, which is wrong wrong wrong because while the students can investigate anybody they want, nobody can investigate them because they’re so goshdarn special and if anyone tries, it’s wrong wrong wrong because it will have a chilling effect on reporters throughout the universe.

This isn’t a reason to have a shield law. It’s a reason to fix the one that’s being blasted through with too little discussion, too little attention.

Three press authorities far more august than me also say papers are crazy for not charging for a web site … here they are …

New York Times editor Bill Keller, in Gawker: “A lot of people in the news business, myself included, don’t buy as a matter of theology that information ‘wants to be free.’ Really good information, often extracted from reluctant sources, truth-tested, organized and explained — that stuff wants to be paid for.” … http://tinyurl.com/awdwev

Legal/journo guru Steve Brill, in American Journalism Review: “The press has to stop committing suicide by giving journalism away for free. Start charging for it, start believing in your product.” http://tinyurl.com/apzdq8

Former Wall Street media hotshot Henry Blodget, in Silicon Alley Insider: The NYT “should explore charging an on-line subscription fee” in a hybrid form a la the Wall Street Journal. … http://tinyurl.com/8pzu25

By Gerry Storch

What a thrill … I score by landing an article on the primo Internet scholarly journalism review, www.ojr.org … a bunch of guys write in to tell me how stupid I am … I guess I’ve finally made it!!!

They told me I was stupid because I contended 1) the nation’s newspapers, which are failing, should go all-Net, 2) concentrate on what hopefully they do best, local news, and, most importantly, 3) stop giving it away for free with their web sites and start charging big-time.

What galvanized me into trying an encore was quite the incisive article by Chris Anderson in the Jan. 31-Feb. 1 Weekend Journal section of the Wall Street Journal. He writes about the proliferation of “free” goods and services online … and devastatingly tears apart this so-called business model, saying it’s about to come crashing down.

Since Mr. Anderson didn’t mention much about newspapers, here I am. This whole absurd concept on how information wants to and has to remain “free” needs more airing.

If the typical desk potato blogger ever summons the energy to go do some reading in the local library (doubtful), he will find he is not charged admission at the door. It’s free to go in.

But of course it really isn’t free, is it … we just pay in a different way … through our taxes.

Did I use small enough words?

One of my posters correctly pointed out that Google, which I had poked some fun at as the biggest cheerleader for the “free” concept, backs it up by giving its services away … its search engine et al … to all of us for free. But Google gives some things away for free and charges for others because if it didn’t, it would probably GO OUT OF BUSINESS. Just like newspapers are. Google doesn’t give its stock away for free; in fact, it unblushingly charges what the market will bear. As of this writing, it’s about $338 per share.

The little town I live in has two pretty top-grade art museums. The Naples Museum of Art charges for admission, the von Liebig does not.

The one that charges does what I think newspapers should do: it creates an excellent, unique product … proclaims it proudly … values it highly … and sets a significant, not-cheap price. It’s $12 during tourist season.

The one that doesn’t charge … if it doesn’t have to, fine. But if it started failing financially and had to start charging, would I criticize? I would not. If it has to charge to survive, it has to charge to survive.

Another poster wondered if I had flunked Economics 101 way back when. Let’s put it to the test and activate that course. If a business is struggling and needs to generate more money (put your thinking caps on), it often will (fill in the blanks) r—- its p—–.

That’s right, it will raise its prices. Sure, it might try a discount coupon deal but that’s a desperation move. Most of the time, it will take the quick and dirty route and raise its prices.

Now we come back to Mr. Anderson. What he says about the Internet free-model biz world’s biggest names is an eye-opener.

Facebook? “An amazingly ineffective advertising platform … applications get less than $1 per 1,000 views.”

Using Google ads to finance your web site? “Will not pay you even minimum wage for the time you spend writing it.”

Google itself? “Venture capital has dried up … (it) is killing products rather than buying them.”

Yahoo? “Can barely support itself.”

YouTube? “Still struggling to match its popularity with revenues.”

Digg? “For all its millions of users, still doesn’t make a dime.”

And what of Twitter, said to be the future of newsgathering … at a limit of 140 characters, this would have to be the ultimate dumbing down of intellectual effort …”After taking over the world, or at least the geeky side of it, it now finds itself having to actually make enough money to cover its bandwidth bills. … The revenue officer has his work cut out for him.”

What all these ventures relied on … and it’s hard to say this with a straight face … was accumulating enough of a horde of mooches and freeloaders so you could sell the business to somebody else. But now, in this economic climate, “the exit doors are closed.”

Does Mr. Anderson have any credentials to impress the OJR reading/posting community? Well, he’s editor in chief of Wired Magazine. That good enough?

Did he give me his insights for free? He did not. I paid for them via my subscription to the Wall Street Journal. Had I plucked the issue off the newsstand, it would have set me back a hefty $2.

Mr. Anderson sees a role for “free” but only in conjunction with “paid.” The WSJ is probably the most prominent example as it is experimenting with blending free and paid content on its web site.

To me, the most important word in that sentence is “paid.” Newspaper publishers often fancy themselves as daring and swashbuckling, but in truth they are a tremulous lot. They have been cowed by a vituperative, vociferous band of bloggers into shying away from even considering establishing online subscriptions … so that, of course, these very same bloggers can continue to get something for free.

Meanwhile, the carnage continues … the sad, sad news of more and more journalists losing their jobs, with little if any hope of finding another.

Time to get a backbone … time to say the online version of your newspaper is worth something and that it is to be measured in the real world by paying for it.

But hey, it’s only a suggestion.

You don’t get free gas from a gas station.

You don’t get free meals from a restaurant.

You wouldn’t walk into the Googleplex … that’s Google’s corporate headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. … and expect a staffer to rush to the lobby with 1,000 free shares of Google stock for you.

At least we don’t think so.

So why is the newspaper industry the only one in America that is expected to give its product … in its electronic version … away for free?

Wrestling with that question will determine the fate of this nation’s newspapers.

Our answer: except for the “Big Four” national players, newspapers will not survive unless they 1) convert out of print and totally into the Internet, 2) confine themselves to local news and, most importantly, 3) charge for it.

Astonishingly … despite many erstwhile titans now tottering on the brink of bankruptcy or outright extinction … we’re talking about big ones like the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Rocky Mountain News, Chicago Sun-Times, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer … almost no one in the industry charges for their web site product. Even as they swirl down the drain, they give it away for free.

“Giving away information for free on the Internet while still charging 50 cents to $1 for the print version of the paper was one of the most fundamentally flawed business decisions of the past 25 years,” says Prof. Paul J. MacArthur, who teaches public relations and journalism at Utica College. “Newspapers told their paying customers that the information truly had no value. They told their paying customers that they were suckers. Why would anyone pay 50 cents for something he or she can get for free? This poorly conceived and obviously flawed strategy has helped put the newspaper industry into its current financial condition and hastened the demise of many publications.”

Prof. MacArthur is one of the experts across the nation who responded to my web site, www.ourblook.com, and our special project examining the future, if any, of newspapers.

Step 1: Papers are being overwhelmed by enormous newsprint, production and delivery costs … and a huge amount of staffing associated with them. All no longer needed.

Newspapers can still “deliver” their product … instead of being flipped from a speeding pickup truck at 4 a.m. on or near a driveway, its content can be delivered electronically to a customer’s computer or to a portable wireless electronic reading device such as Amazon’s Kindle.

What’s more, “content providers, once called newspapers, are experimenting with on-demand delivery particularly to mobile telephones,” says Michael Ray Smith, communications professor at Campbell University. “Telephones are computers and computers make moving information more convenient than ever. In some cases, information alerts and bursts can be downloaded from a source at work or home or even in transit and then read while on the road.”

Let’s hope that papers have a heart and offer the best severance packages and retraining possibilities they can to their blue-collar workforce, many of whom tend to be long-term, loyal employees.

But obsolescence is obsolescence.

Oh, yes, the four papers that probably can survive in print … of course they’re USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Washington Post.

They’re in the right place … “I see New York and Washington always having newspapers because they are the seats of financial and political power,” says David E. Johnson, CEO of Strategic Vision, an influential public relations firm in D.C.

They have a national base in their financial and/or political reporting and an affluent readership that surely is strong enough to keep them going.

Step 2: Carve out a niche that makes the paper’s web site dominant, irreplaceable and one of a kind.

“I would like to offer a two-word solution to the financial woes of our ink-stained friends: ‘local news,’ ” says business consultant Jonathan Stark, who has consulted for a number of U.S. papers. “Newspapers have real roots in the communities they serve. They have history, tradition and personal relationships. In some cases, they are a source of local pride. If newspapers are willing to let go of their print-based history, invest in their writers, embrace technology and dedicate themselves to being THE source for local news, they will have readers for as long as people can read.”

Who else can do it better? Local TV station news anchors and skimpy throwaway weekly papers can’t. They feed off the big local paper anyway.

While papers have cut their editorial staffs not only to the bone but inside the bone, there’s no excuse for them not coming up with a dynamite local news website. That’s because they can reallocate the staffers who work in national or international news or other areas of the paper to the local effort. Go for it … marshal all the resources into this one specialty. Local news, local features, local business, local sports, local commentary. If necessary, use “citizen journalists” for neighborhood news. Cover the community top to bottom.

This is not only a financial and logistical advantage. It creates a journalistic improvement, too, as news can be instantly added and obsolete or inaccurate information removed. The expertly crafted story or hard-charging enterprise piece or beautiful set of photographs can remain on the site for readers’ enjoyment for a while instead of becoming tomorrow’s bird cage liner.

In doing so, it would behoove the papers to play it straight. Millions of readers have deserted newspapers in disgust over political agenda-driven reporting.

Step 3: How much to charge? The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, one of the few if not the only sizable metro paper to charge for its web site, makes readers pay $4.95 a month. Since that’s about 16 cents a day, we’d say it’s far too low. We’d make it a nice round number, easy to remember … $20 a month. That hopefully would bring in a substantial amount of revenue.

Readers, of course, have become conditioned to free content on the Internet. Many expect it, some stridently demand it. Can that habit be broken?

“The only way you can charge online is if you have something so special that no one else can re-create it,” says Paul Swider, a former St. Petersburg Times reporter who also did a citizen journalist web site for the paper. “Don’t charge for national politics because there’s 1,000 other outlets to which the reader can turn, so you’re done. But if you have a synthesis or data or other unique quality of content that others can’t duplicate, you could charge for it and succeed.”

That means local news.

And what of the current business model of newspapers … the one that has them give content away free on the Net in hopes of luring huge number of readers and the attendant “page views” to lure advertisers. Well, if it works, why are so many papers failing?

Papers should do both … charge for their content and work hard to get advertising on the site. Wouldn’t a lot of advertisers prefer quality over quantity in readership … wouldn’t potential business customers be a lot more likely to be those who pay for the paper instead of those who freeload?

Walter E. Hussman Jr., publisher of the Democrat-Gazette, noted in an op-ed piece for the Wall Street Journal in 2007 that the U.S. newspaper industry collectively spends about $7 billion a year to gather news. “By offering this news for free and selling it to aggregators like Google, Yahoo and MSN for a small fraction of what it costs to create it, newspaper readership and circulation have declined,” he wrote. “Why would readers buy a newspaper when they can get the same information online for free?”

He added this point: ads have much more impact in print than on a computer screen. “While consumers often find pop-up ads a distraction (on a web site) and banner ads as more clutter, readers often seek out the advertising in newspapers.”

Hussman’s paper, incidentally, while not exactly flourishing, has suffered much less advertising and circulation declines than most other of his peers. Since Hussman whipped the much larger Gannett in Little Rock’s famed newspaper war of the early ’90s, we’d say he knows how to survive in this business.

Which brings us back to our original question: why do people expect newspaper web sites to be free?

And there’s no good answer. The so-called experts use airy, meaningless phrases like “because that’s the Internet culture” as if this notion just floated down from heaven somehow.

In fact, that’s how Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who benefits immensely from basically free news, views it. In an interview with Fortune’s Adam Lashinsky, he actually said, “the culture of the Internet is that information wants to be free.”

Information doesn’t want to be free any more than gasoline wants to be free or food wants to be free. When Mr. Schmidt stands in the lobby of the Googleplex and hands out free shares of his company stock, then maybe we can believe the “free” rationale. Until then, papers should charge for what they do so they don’t go out of business. Simple as that.