Get rid of newspaper websites

As it becomes clear that an ad-only model CANNOT, repeat CANNOT, “monetize” online newspapers, either today, tomorrow or five years from now, more small- and midsized dailies are doing the smart thing, and either pricing subscription paywalls higher than their dead-trees versions, or else simply junking much or all of their online content and presence.

Among the reasons American Journalism Review touts this idea, this one stands out:

•Eliminating Web offerings would save precious dollars now being spent on a product that does little more than undercut the printed paper. Even smaller papers are devoting a growing share of their limited newsroom budgets to Web-only content. The cost is substantial, and growing, at larger metropolitan papers, which for years have been pouring resources into new Web features (video, search, Twitter feeds, blogs, etc.) without seeing much financial reward for their efforts. Question: How deep does the hole have to get before publishers stop digging? Another question: What would happen if those same resources were focused exclusively on producing a first-class newspaper?

Skeptic Alan Mutter, a former publisher, doubts newspapers can coordinate that much… even though he proposes… irony alert… a “universal subscription” to all participating online papers on his own blog. Moron.

Maybe, if smaller dailies like the Newport Daily News just take the lead as AJR documents, others will follow.