Dumb, dumb, dumb.

We do hold some stories we feel are exclusive for competitive reasons.

Top story on Newsvine right now? Some women wants the right to massage horses!! I’ll stick with actual news people who may well make silly decisions but at least they go out and get actual news that might relevant rather than the “vote” it up crowd who, as illustrated, don’t have a damn clue!

I guess on the bright side, their newspaper website still looks 100 times better than the one for my town (www.stltoday.com) – even if the news is going to be old(er) now.

I’ll bet the local news channel websites will pounce on the opportunity to spike their traffic.

Taking a step back without thinking about how it is going to vault you forward, often results in last place and not two steps forward.

Also this quote
“Most people are too selfish to even sign up for a free account to read full stories”
is a rather myopic look at what is actually happening. Perhaps they aren’t the selfish ones, you are. You have assumed that the value add by signing up, will entice them to do so.

Here’s what’s especially confounding to me about this: In order to prove, or even posit, that this is a good idea, you’d have to poll people with the following questions —

1. “Why aren’t you paying for our paper?” (Let’s assume the answer is “because I just read everything online” because that’s the only answer that would even cause an idea like this to be floated)

2. “Would you start paying for the paper again if __% of the stories weren’t available online until the paper version came out?”

I just can’t imagine anyone saying yes to the second question. If people have decided to remove newspapers from their daily routines, they are mostly likely removed for good. Sure you might get the very rare edge case who *thinks* their answer to that question is yes, but when it comes to opening their wallet, is it really? And even if it is, it is worth crippling your entire newsroom’s workflow for it?

I’ll bet the editor of the Inquirer $100 that this research has either not been done or that the results of it are being severely misinterpreted.

Now, I agree that their decision isn’t a smart move when people can get their news from a million other places online, but can you really blame them for trying? Someone has to try something.

I can just imagine what it’s like to work in the web side at that paper.

Both products (paper and online) should be complimenting one another, not in direct competition. There are many reasons the physical paper is highly relevant: there’s its fantastic portability; the tangible nature of turning the pages; the experience of reading the top news stories and flipping it over to catch up with the sport on the back over a coffee or on the train. These are qualities that are not necessarily replicated well online.

Online obviously has the huge advantage of the live quality to its content, the fantastic contribution of readers comments and thoughts as well as the convenience of RSS feeds enabling you to glimpse the headlines as they evolve over the day.

This decision seems to imply that there are simply two separate consumers of their content: you are either an old timer that reads the paper and has no time for a computer, and those that only read their news online. Very perplexing indeed.

Its simply terrible decision and one I’m sure will be reverted back in due course when they realise what a faux pas it is.