A Modest Proposal

Newspapers are folding in random cities around the country. While this may or may not signal the death of American newspapers, there is something newspapers can do to help themselves. Of course, it would require working together, which is not something newspapers do well. Since only large sites like Google and the Huffington Post actually sell ads to support the editorial content, why don't newspapers pull their copy from the Web and just continue to publish on dead trees with advertising to pay for it. Many papers would still be in trouble, but they wouldn't be competing against themselves. I don't know anybody who has actually clicked on an ad on the Internet. I'm not naive enough to expect to make money from this blog. Newspaper publishers should stop fantasizing about making money from Internet advertising and tell their readers, "party is over, if you want to read it, buy it, just like in the old days."