Is it just me or does anyone else find it ironic that the Executive Director of the California First Amendment Coalition is proposing an embargo of online news as a way to protect print media? The idea seems to contradict the First Amendment.

Peter Scheer suggests temporarily holding back rights to the online reuse of news from conventional media outlets to leave online portals with “nothing more than digital fishwrap:”

“Newspapers and wire services need to figure out a way, without running afoul of antitrust laws, to agree to embargo their news content from the free Internet for a brief period — say, 24 hours — after it is made available to paying customers. The point is not to remove content from the Internet, but to delay its free release in that venue.

A temporary embargo, by depriving the Internet of free, trustworthy news in real-time, would, I believe, quickly establish the true value of that information.”

Scheer begins his editorial by saying “reports of the imminent death of newspapers — which lately have become a staple in the very newspapers that are said to be flat-lining — are, as a good print journalist once said, greatly exaggerated.” If that’s so, why is he proposing artificial restraints to protect these thriving media outlets?

He then writes:

“Newspapers cannot succeed as Internet ventures — not on the scale they need to survive — if they persist in using a business model predicated on giving away their news content and selling ads based on the audience that is drawn to free content.”

I believe:

1. Print journalism is on the ropes, and has seen a serious exodus of both subscribers and therefore advertisers, and that print is a valuable medium that should be preserved for its unique attributes.

2. Many print media offer more depth of reporting than portals can offer and more timely and credible reporting than most blogs can offer

3. In a free market economy, consumer preference should dictate what products (including media products) win and lose in the marketplace, not governmental regulation, or restraint of trade or of the free flow of information

4. Print media are superior to online media in many respects. I am in the minority perhaps, but I buy large numbers of books (many of which I actually read.) I am very attached to the printed word, and would hate to see it disappear completely. I have however seen predictions of the demise of the printed word going back over 20 years. (Remember Apple’s “paperless office” campaign? It was introduced around the same time as the LaserWriter, the first mass market PostScript laser printer which spawned a tradition of workplace tree killing that continues unabated today.)

5. While we’re on the topic of conventional media, TV, including television news, is garbage. I threw away my TV set in 2002.

I don’t know the answer to the problem Scheer is trying to respond to. (I’m not entirely sure Scheer has stated the problem clearly either.) I do know that in order to neutralize the threat posed by online media, newspapers will need to partner with these outlets and negotiate deals based on their strengths as content providers. Quick fixes and protectionist strategies won’t work in a world in which the free flow of information is a critical attribute for a winning media outlet.