Pay for online news? I've been listening to online-news people talk about it with much interest ever since I was laid off 6 months ago as the managing editor of a regional news site for an Internet Industry portal. Most of the old pros say it won't work. The consultants say about the same thing. The Suits? Well, they just don't say.

Yet, people have paid for print newspapers for ages and they don't seem to mind. So what's so different about online-news?

At this point, I think that online-news users have to pay, it's as simple as that. The ad-only revenue model is clearly dead in my mind -- freefalling ad revenues in a soft economy was the reason I was laid off.

The question is why aren't they paying?

I figure it all comes down to value.

People will pay for something, if it has value to them and they desire it. If people aren't willing to pay for it, then it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the product has no value.

If it has no value, the online-news product needs to be modified until it does have value. At that point, you'll get the online-news consumer to show you their money and hand it over.

Why Won't People Pay?

I haven't read anything by anyone that helps me understand why people won't pay for online-news and how to get them to pay.

If all the suits, consultants and old pros would stop taking surveys and start listening to their guts, maybe they would learn what 'my gut' told me one aimless, unemployed day sitting on a big rock on the shores of The Coast of Chicago: The online-news product has to change because right now it isn't worth much of anything.

(Now I can hear the excuses by some of the old hands [reading this] who have been in this business since the Neanderthals danced to the rhythms of the first drums, that people are too busy...they don't have time for the news...and you can't make money from online-news, etc.)

Sorry folks, but I don't believe it.

Some of you may remember the pet rock. If a piece of stone wrapped in a paper package and purchased by thousands can have VALUE in the marketplace, surely online-news can, too. The people who hyped the pet rock figured out how to create value and made money from it. I think it's time for online-news people to do the same.

You may be thinking I'm stepping on your toes, insulting your professionalism, and you're ready to either flame me or simply click away. It's your choice. But on the other hand, if you're willing to hear me out, I'll tell you why I believe the way I do.

(Thanks for continuing.)

My gut feeling is that the Web as a whole is closer to the 'oral rhetorical tradition' than the 'written rhetorical tradition'. Hence, the Web's users prefer unfiltered, raw discourse to the finely tuned, stylized rhetoric that is the standard of print pubs.

In part, I think this preference is due to several reasons: (1) the Web's fast speed of interaction, (2) the Web is not exclusionary, while the training (sometimes it takes years) required to create stylized content is, and (3) the Web is less a technology platform than a simmering crock pot of a linguistic, primal stew; its users are changing how words are spelled and sentences are formed ? new 'language' is evolving.

But these preferences alone do not fully explain why Web viewers prefer this kind of sloppy, unschooled discourse to the stylized stuff produced by the professionals.

What does explain it all is the very thing professionals talk about all the time but don't act upon until the s**t hits the 'fan' of mass dot-com layoffs and company closings. That thing is the intrinsic Web user's experience.

By knowing the difference between the Web experience and the newspaper user experience, all the secrets for making paid-access a viable revenue model unfold.

What exactly is this experience I'm talking about?

Well, it's all summed up in a little phrase that everyone knows but hardly anyone ever pays attention to ? seriously. Surfing the Net.

One Damn Serious Phrase

While the phrase is more or less a cliche by now, I've come to realize it is a serious phrase, even a technical one, that describes the Web user's experience precisely.

If you bother to think about the phrase, and really come to understand it, you will understand why the online-news product in its present form will not support paid access and how the product must change in order to support it.

'Surfing The Net' suggests two things: (1) a meandering information-gathering process and (2) the level by which this information is assimilated by the user: like a surfer that skims the water's surface, the Web user gathers information only superficially. In other words, give me the facts not the details...

This herein lies the problem of paid-access to online-news content. Web users do not read the Web, rather, they view the Web to experience it. To get a Web user to pay for content, the news product must provide a viewing experience.

My experience running an online-news site syncs with my conclusions. Putting out daily stories and doing everything on the site from news sourcing, writing, editing, etc., I discovered very quickly that (1) I could only depend on my viewer to read a headline, a lead-in and the first paragraph, maybe total 100-200 words, (2) Web viewers aren't fussy about how a piece is written but are very fussy about the timing and frequency at which those pieces appear on a site and (3) Web viewers, however, will read/muse/meditate/respond to sassy, truthful, from-the-gut op-eds ? something non-professional wordsmiths are very good at producing and a lot of professionals, frankly, couldn't produce even if they tried!

You see, online-news writers are ordered by the grammar-guru-stylebook-czars how to write a piece, how to format it, what they can say and not say, etc., but rarely do these types understand that online-news viewers don't READ, hence, the rules and regulations of print publications are of little value to Web viewers.

Web viewers really want is something original. Out of this originality forms the seed of the pay off of the Web experience -- a thrill. Unfortunately, too many online-news sites aren't very original in both their news content, priorities and production. (Compare the following stories, and you'll see that they are not only produced by reader-biased content developers but also they are unoriginal: 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.) When Web viewers see stories like the ones above, they know it's a tired, old product. So, can you blame them for not wanting to pay?

A lot of online-news sites have already morphed into the same thing that is produced on ABC, NBC and CBS every night on TV. While TV broadcasting produces exactly the same stories, with just different 'talent' reading the news, online-news sites crank out just about the same news copy as everyone else.

So, just like many TV viewers' preference for watching old Seinfeld reruns that are slotted opposite the network news, Web viewers either click away to something more amusing than the online-news or just don't come back. If you can't keep 'em, you can't get 'em to pay.

For online-newspapers to get people to pay, they have to change their audiences' 'so what' opinions. To do that, the news product must drastically change. That's not all, however. The whole attitude about what an online-news site must be reassessed. Folks, I can't say it simpler than that.

This Is What I Would Do If...

Well, you can't change a product unless you know what is and isn't.

What 'really' is the online-news product? It sounds like a very simple question, but the answer isn't simple.

The online-news product is everything that gets piped down the wires to a news-consumer's home/office when he or she makes a request for it.

Let's see, there's all kinds of HTML codes, scriptings, banner ads, animated gifs, static images, and plenty more. Oh yeah, finally, there's the news story, the heart (or after thought) of the online-news product.

But the online-news product is still incomplete.

Beside all the codes, scripts, images and files, every online-news site is downloading to its users its own paradigms of what an online-newspaper should be. And these paradigms ? excess baggage from the print newspaper world ? unfortunately, weigh down the product so it sinks to Davy Jones locker waiting for an unrelenting treasure hunter to discover it ? for no one else is crazy enough to bother, or in this case, to wait around to read it.

Why do so many online-newspapers look like print publications?

Two reasons: (1) the old paradigms promulgated by the grammar-guru-stylebook-czars who bring with them the Platonic ideals (the short or long version) of what a newspaper is supposed to be and (2) marketing and IT people took over control of the online-news product and created a half-baked thing that no one wants to buy.

Why?

Try interviewing a few marketing managers and they all say the same thing: they want to preserve their offline 'brand' while building their online brand, to create a fast ramp-up of revenues to run the business. Sounds reasonable, but did it happen? By embracing all that marketing crap instead of focusing on putting out a good product, many businesses were destroyed, people were laid off and the public has been given the false impression that the Internet is not worth the bother.

The way I look at it, the online-news creators acted like King Lear ? they gave up the kingdom and as a result King Chaos now reigns.

(Hmm...Don't like my unemployment companion Bill Shakespeare? Well, with the help of Pete Townsend and The Who: People aren't paying for online-news because they know these sites are an 'Emminence Front' ? Just a put-on!)

To change the news product, I feel you must accept that an online newspaper will not necessarily look or feel or be like a print newspaper. You got to throw away your old-fashioned paradigms.

But most of all, everyone in online-news needs to know who is running the show. It can't be the marketing people and it can't be the computer (IT) people. And it can't be the grammar-gurus, either.

It must be the people who create the product ? the committed, creative, news writers and editors. Tell everyone else to keep their hands off! This is what I would do if I were an editor-in-chief and I wanted to create an online-news product people would buy:

The online newspaper index page would be just content links, none of the other garbage. Each story would only contain a text headline, a lead-in and a one-paragraph abstract of the story. (There would be very little written text on a page.) All the story details would go into an audio file that would automatically be launched when a link is clicked. High priority news stories would get a video file. After the initial story posting, updates would be posted directly from the sources, as the facts arise--instantaneously. All stories would be supported by different medias, also posted directly to Web. On-the-street reporters would be fitted with PDAs and given the ability to post information and updates directly to the Web site. Yes, the copy would be raw, but it would be beautiful and authentic and original, just what the Web-news doctor ordered! As editors back in the office received reader feedback, found supporting evidence, conducted surveys or got images, they would post it directly into a flowing news story as it happens. Now I can hear the oldsters saying: we're doing that already.

Yet, today, the viewing experience is secondary to the text (reading experience). The stories are laid out so that the first string players (audio/video) are on the sidelines and the second-stringers (text) are on the main field. Who wants to watch a big league game of second stringers and pay for it?

I'm not suggesting Web-news is another access point for TV news, either, nor am I saying to get all techno-happy about Flash-produced stories, too. The tools must fit the situation; that's a given. But the viewing experience must be center stage to get people to pay. The Web can do TV news better because it has the power to engender (and nurture) an exciting, new form of story telling.

In the old way of telling a news story, the news writer provided the objective viewpoint. In this new way, however, the viewers provide it. By getting as many different kinds of input, medias, and views of a story, Web-based news gives the viewer of the news story a new kind of objectivity. It's a much more powerful approach that emphasizes, first, a listening or viewing experience to create interest, then, as an ongoing drama of new information.

Gone will be the days of the controlled style of the copydesk. (Heck, do you really need all of these grammar-guru-stlyebook-czars, anyway?) Stories and updates might only be 1 or 2 sentences long. And, yes, gone will be the day of the stylistic, 'honey-tongued' news story.

Web-news stories will appear fragmented to the oldsters. In fact, if they saw what I am suggesting right now, they will literally freak out! But this fragmentation is in appearance only. What you are giving the viewer is the facts without the commentary.

After all, no Web viewer wants the smooth prose of a talking head or a copy-editor who really introduce something into a story that should not be there, i.e. form distorts substance. (They do it subconsciously, I feel.) Let the reader experience the facts. It will be like a puzzle for them to figure out. It will give them a reason to actually stick with the darn story!

Okay, for the 'suits' out there, let me say this: This format has benefits for four reasons: (1) it accentuates the advantages of the technology, (2) is closer to a viewing experience and moves away from the reading experience, (3) it compensates for different connectivity methods and (4) most importantly, advertising would reside within the audio and video files, not cluttering up the user interface to only distract the viewer from the news product. Since users are used to listening and viewing ads, you will be able to approach Web advertising, ironically, from a more traditional business approach.

The Short, Happy Career Of...

I would go on but I get the sense most of you probably think I am crazy. I can hear all of you say...can't be done?won't ever happen...no one in the news business would be willing to give up so much control of the news...(That's a great story in and of itself.)

That is perhaps true. But if you are not getting people to put up their money, I say that you do not have a news business, you have a news hobby. Hobbies are fine; they keep you sane. (This summer I've improved my tennis game immensely.) But banging a bunch of tennis balls on the court or in the practice lane, like very few hobbies, will not pay for the car payments, the tons of pampers your kid seems to be going through, or those $50 flowers you just bought for your sweetheart at FTD.com!

Now, I'm sure there are a lot of you (if you've gotten this far) who would just like me to go away!

In a way, I can't blame you. Why? Because the value you presently bring to the production of news content right now ? proofing, copyediting, grammar guru-ing, depth writing ? really has a little value in the editorial production I am proposing.

If I am right, I'm sorry you feel that way. But I'm not surprised. Prior to my last job, I was the technical editor/feature story writer of an appliance-industry trade magazine. The two editorial jobs I've had thus far have taught me one thing clearly: creative thinkers and folks who want to go out and dig for a story wherever it takes them (for the thrill of it) as well as professionals who believe a journalism career is about providing a valued and necessary service to our civilization are definitely in the minority.

I have met a lot of grammar-guru-stylebook-czars, more in the print world than in the online world, and I've found that their biggest flaw is that they are obsessed with process, not product, and that's why the news product in its present form isn't worth much. Basically, I'm saying the wrong people were hired to get the job done.

Yet, the more I reflect on my lay off, the less I am bothered about it and the more my heart goes out to the man who took a big risk of hiring me ? I was no Big College Journalism grad, just a guy who really wanted the job. He also had to lay me off. If I were him, I would have fired 'me' too. I don't want to be dead weight to any business.

But I'm sure he got the raw part of the deal; he has to figure out how to make money in this business. My guess is that he must feel like Gulliver these days, all tied up by the Lilliputians who prevent him from creating a real sweet and smokin' news product!

But there's light at the end of the tunnel, however.

The saving grace is that at some point in the future, creative thinkers not grammar-gurus will be needed to implement the editorial vision I am suggesting. And it will happen. I'm sure of it.

Over the past 4 months, I've had an opportunity to reflect about my future. I'm not sure what I will do when the economic downturn subsides. But I do realize one thing: I am now unemployable.

I thought I might be able to launch a freelance career, but I have evolved so far away from 'traditional' online-news rhetoric and production that I don't see it possible: what I now know in my gut to be an effective news product is probably not widely held.

And it's even more unlikely, considering what I have viewed on most job search engines, that an online-news site would be interested in what I have to truly offer as a full-time employee ? a guy who'll think to make sense out of life and business. As the world turns...

So right now more than ever I feel less like a laid-off dot-com worker than Saul Bellow's Dangling Man. I'm waiting. Waiting for the next big thing to happen. Waiting for the cosmos to tell me what I should do. Just waiting.

There are other days, when I think about career, I feel like I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For. In this career, I thought I climbed the highest mountain... ran through the fields... scaled the city walls to find HER. But I didn't.

I've had a lot of fun over the past 4 years in this career. Boy, really! It offered me excitement that I never had had in my other careers. (I've been a field engineer in the computer power protection industry and I also was in the U.S. Navy.)

Right now, I've stopped typing and what comes to my mind is this: I remember the moment I wanted to be part of the media business... when I was a young sailor in Beirut, Lebanon, and the sky appeared to be falling...it was a story that had to be told...I wanted to tell it. What matters most to me is telling a story that matters. People need stories to make sense out of their lives. And that is what journalism should be about.

I do regret one thing, however. Not getting a chance to work with my old boss for a longer time. He was not a grammar-guru nor a 'suit.' He was a mentor who would have taught me the things that I'm sure I still need to learn but perhaps never will.

I realize now that this business isn't ready for my kind of journalism. I guess it's time for me to go.