KCStar to put up "paywall" for digital content on Dec. 5th

[dallaschiefsfan]

I don't begrudge them this. It will only buy them a little more time, though. Print and the old print/news business is dead. It's simply not how people get their news anymore and those companies still have far too much overhead to be profitable. Plus the writing is so terrible these days.

Basically, news-collection sites will snippet as much as copyright allows and you'll get the gist of stories. Radio stations will still host shows with the beat writers and we'll get the same info. Twitter/Facebook will still propagate the basics of any pertinent article without anyone needing to pay for it.

[alnorth]

Originally Posted by dallaschiefsfan

Basically, news-collection sites will snippet as much as copyright allows and you'll get the gist of stories. Radio stations will still host shows with the beat writers and we'll get the same info. Twitter/Facebook will still propagate the basics of any pertinent article without anyone needing to pay for it.

Except that radio is also dying. This whole "we'll still get the news forwarded/retweeted" argument presumes that someone is paying the writers.

There will always be a demand for local news produced by someone with more credibility than a blogger. That demand may or may not be enough to pay for the local writers that currently exist, but online news behind a paywall, in some form, will continue and eventually they will aggressively defend their IP, just like that Las Vegas newspaper which sues every message board which has a story copy-pasted onto it.

National news might always be able to be ad-driven, but when local news becomes one great big scout.com board, people will start paying for it if the price is reasonable.