Why Online News Should Be More Like Cable

Peter Osnos has a wonderful piece in our Correspondents blog about how we pay for news. The vast majority of my liberals friends, I'm reminded, pay for Fox News (which they hate) and won't pay for the New York Times (which they read daily). That's because they expect to pay for cable packages including Fox News every month, while they expect to read NYTimes.com for free online every day. And therein lies the problem:

Americans willing to pay for cable television subscriptions to channels they never watch must be persuaded to subscribe to online versions of the publications they read in print or on the Internet.

Once upon a time, TV was free. But then cable was invented and companies started charging for packages. It's seems pretty clear to me that one logical avenue to lead journalism out of its current revenue dungeon is a similar package model. Osnos notes that one organization called Journalism Online is attempting to do just that -- reach an "agreement with hundreds of news organizations that would start collecting for content under an assortment of payment options." In other words, it would be like cable for your online news.

Maybe Murdoch isn't so crazy after all.