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May 13, 2009, 3:04 p.m.

Charging for content online so people won’t read it

There’s lots of chatter about MediaNews Group’s plan to charge for some content online. Details still TK, but this is important: MediaNews president Jody Lodovic doesn’t expect the pay wall to generate significant income.

Lodovic told Editor & Publisher’s Jennifer Saba, “The whole idea is to stop the erosion from print to online and encourage people to become print subscribers.” It’s less a revenue stream than a loss dam — and for a company with 54 daily newspapers that make nearly all of their money in print, it makes some sense. In any event, it’s a new way to think about pay walls.

POSTED     May 13, 2009, 3:04 p.m.
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The media becomes an activist for democracy
“We cannot be neutral about this, by definition. A free press that doesn’t agitate for democracy is an oxymoron.”
Embracing influencers as allies
“News organizations will increasingly rely on digital creators not just as amplifiers but as integral partners in storytelling.”
Action over analysis
“We’ve overindexed on problem articulation, to the point of problem admiring. The risk is that we are analyzing ourselves into inaction and irrelevance.”