Several of my friends, many of who have or still work for newspaper companies have weighed in:

“Nope, not at all. Free content is everywhere in the world, why would I pay for news I can find elsewhere?”

“hell no”

“no becasue you can read free stuff online anywhere, why pay”

“That’s a big negatory there compadre’.”

Brad Thomas: What if it were local content that nobody else currently covered?

“shoot, i can get that right here on FB for free”

“That’s the thing. For people to pay, it must be something they can’t get anywhere else. I think this will only work in certain communities, however. Take Fort Mill, for example. There are 40,000 people (mostly affluent) who live in the township and, despite there being three newspapers that “cover” them — The Observer, The Herald and the Fort Mill Times — none of them provide daily coverage unless something big happens. I think this would be a great place to experiment with a pay-only model. And I think it would work.”

“police here in winston shot a bear not 3 miles from my house and i found out about it on FB before any of the media reported it online….it would have to be hyper-local, community interest content, but i agree that it’s possible”

Brad Thomas: I think the only way I would advocate paying for local content would be if it was expert analysis or some in-depth investigative reporting. Perhaps exclusive, time sensitive content nobody else has. And even then, I wouldn’t pay more than a couple bucks a month tops.

“I agree. There are so many magazines now generating decent content from a community human interest level. Some are putting complete articles online. Anything’s possible, but…sure would be tough to pull off, I think.”

Brad Thomas: So, what we’re saying is — we’d pay for certain kinds of content — but for all intensive purposes, no, we wouldn’t pay for the content found in a daily newspaper. Right?

Brad Thomas: I’m being honest, there is currently no daily newspaper in North or South Carolina that I would pay to read online.

“I will never pay to read a newspaper online…”

“That’s the way to go. It’s inevitable. It doesn’t make any sense to give away free news. People will have to pay to read news in the near future.”

“It’s too late. There are too many places where people can get their news online for free. The TV stations are taking over in terms of traffic and there’s no way they’d ever try to charge for content.”

“Charging for news is committing suicide for anyone who tries it.”

“You pay for the paper, you pay for food, you pay for gas, why shouldn’t you pay for online news? Reporters work hard to get you those stories. Shouldn’t they get paid for their effort.

Many newspapers already charge for online content in Europe and it works great because people are willing to pay if the content of a story is interesting. It’s gotta be local and it’s gotta be exclusive. But charging for online content is the future whether people like it or not.”

” …except there are PLENTY of folks willing to do the work in getting the news to you for free. It would have to be something magical, unique and in high demand for anyone to be able to charge for it. I just don’t see anyone doing that. It would take an amazing group of folks and an amazing amount of resources to pull it off.”

What do you think? Would you pay to read your local paper — as it stands today — online?

It’s then that the “old media” companies sit back and wonder how they can compete with companies that have little overhead but yet remain some competitive to them. The answer is quite simply to disrupt the disruptor.

How do you do that? By taking your products and treating them as equals. Many in the newspaper industry feel that their newspaper website is basically the newspaper, but online. That’s where they fail. Their website could be much more, but because many in leadership positions haven’t had the foresight to plan for necessary enhancements, it gave the disruptors a venue to disrupt. Sites like CraigsList.org, Wikipedia and eBay.com filled niches that newspapers used to fill in their print editions. Now, it’s easier and cheaper to find things with more relevancy on these websites than it is in the newspaper.

Where do newspapers start?

They have to look at the jobs to be done. What do people in our communities need, not just from us as newspapers, but in general? And the bigger question is, how do we make money?

Here are a few initiatives that will put any media company on a path to grow revenue outside of their core product with minimal investment while engaging and involving the community:

I) Community Wiki
Imagine having a resource that would be the end-all, be-all for your community. Historical information about the immediate region, information about local government, maps tied into a business directory via a google or yahoo mashup and other local general information like phone numbers for the power company or what the average water bill is in the city all would be information that local residents would seek on a daily basis. The wiki would be open to be posted to by the community, with the understanding that if something isn’t correct that a correction should be submitted to the wiki administrator. Imagine all of the information that could be housed and sifted through on a daily basis and all the traffic that would result from it. The possibilities are nearly endless. The traffic could almost rival the newspaper’s website itself.

2) Niche publications
One way newspaper companies supplement their advertising in their newspapers is to create niche publications or magazines to offer targeted advertising opportunities. By why limit yourself by simply putting a crappy PDF of it online or simply just posting the articles to a template? These niche publications are directed towards specific segments of the population who like to discuss and share information between themselves. To not facilitate that is turning your nose at thousands of page views a month. Imagine taking articles from your niche publication and creating a social networking site, complete with polls, forums photo galleries and video sharing. You would then solicit feedback through the site and gain insight on what is and what isn’t working as far as content in your publication. Readers will come back and visit stories they’ve already read to see responses other have left. That increases site stickiness, which in turn increases page views.

3) Other Niche Sites
And why stop at niche sites based on publications? Mom-centered sites have sprung up in nearly every community over the last two years. Entertainment sites continue to drive traffic for young folks that want to spend money. Sports sites get rabid and passionate fans visiting all year long, often several times a day to get the latest nugget of information on their team. With the new AP rules that are in place, a niche site with information you already pay for can drive more traffic with less work. User generated content is huge, so why not facilitate it? If you don’t someone else will — in your community.

Of course, all of these sound great, but how do they get done? With a shrinking newspaper staff, it’s not a good idea to put this burden on them. Let them focus on the core product. A new position, even positions need to be created to facilitate these new initiatives. The right person would understand the technical and content sides of the product. They’d have to follow the industry and web 2.0 culture, and would have to have the right attitude to facilitate discussion and invigorate the community.

These are just a few examples.

If you are interested in finding out just how you can achieve these and more, I am available to discuss a customized road map on where to begin and how to sustain it.

When I worked for the Independent Tribune in 2007, I tried to get the folks there to understand that it was all about branding and using the web and print mediums together symbiotically and not parisitically.

The idea was to have this icon appear in the paper anywhere there was more information on a story or there was something significant on the web they should check out.

“Talk about IT. Read about IT. Blog about IT.” IT was the Independent Tribune.

This didn’t catch on until after I left and a new regime that “got it” took over.

Wayne Hinshaw shot the photos. I put them together into this package.