Plain Dealer lawyer thinks Congress should mandate more revenue for newspapers

Daily newspapers see their longtime business model crumbling, and they are desperate. But their hunger to find a revenue source somewhere — anywhere — has led to some ideas that border on thievery and self-destruction.

And it’s sad to see a normally level-headed columnist like the Plain Dealer’s Connie Schultz buy into and become a mouthpiece for the deceptive spin being put out by traditional print media, as she did in her column yesterday. I won’t link to it for reasons I’ll shortly make clear.

First, Schultz talks up reporter Mark Puente’s recent work investigative work that lead to Sheriff Gerald McFaul’s resignation as an example of how valuable newspapers are. Well, OK, every once in a while, the PD still does something worthwhile. But then she makes a leap into the abyss of absurdity.

She touts a “plan” hatched by Plain Dealer lawyer David Marburger and his economics-professor brother Daniel to amend federal copyright law — already heavily tilted in favor of preserving corporate power and profits and against the public interest — to shore up newspapers’ business models.

She quotes David Marburger claiming that “free riders” like local TV stations and online aggregators like Daily Beast and Newser are “diverting” people from the original source of the news. He’d like an embargo on using information from newspaper stories for 24 hours and payment for ad revenue at these aggregator sites. (One of many things that doesn’t add up is Marburger’s citation of PD editor Susan Goldberg’s claim that online revenue is “pathetically low,” yet he somehow believes these aggregator sites can provide enough royalty payments to help keep newspapers afloat).

There are several problems here. For one, local TV stations have been pulling their news from the daily papers for decades — often in partnership with the paper. NOW they’re complaining about this?

Schultz cites Newser and Daily Beast as examples of “parasitic” (her word, not mine) sites that are supposedly bleeding daily newspapers. Both run opening paragraphs of articles with links to the original sources; neither looks like it’s wallowing in ad revenue. Although it wasn’t mentioned in Schultz’s column, I suspect Marburger’s real target — which I heard Goldberg mention at a forum recently — is Google. But Google doesn’t even offer an opening paragraph; it only indicates what information exists where. Consequently, it doesn’t “divert” traffic from sites — it drives it there.

So, here’s what I’d propose. If someone reads only the brief description of the story at Newser or Daily Beast and stops there, by all means, they should pay the paper a royalty (which I suspect would be miniscule if based on a percentage of their profits). But if the reader clicks through to the original story, the newspaper must pay the aggregator site a fee for driving traffic to their site! Now why do I suspect Marburger won’t go for that?

It strikes me as fair. So I won’t link to Schultz’s column until Marburger concedes that Ohio Daily Blog should be paid a fee every time someone clicks through to the Plain Dealer from our site. Why should I drive traffic to their site if I’m not getting paid a percentage of THEIR ad revenue?

P.S. I know there’s been some controversy swirling because the PD — after being so hypersensitive about Schultz speaking out on political issues that MIGHT confront Congress since she is married to Senator Sherrod Brown — is suddenly willing to let her write a column openly advocating for Congress to amend a law. I agree it appears awkward that the PD’s objections seem to have been temporarily lifted now that it’s a matter of self-interest to the paper. To me, this actually IS a blatant conflict of interest, and I hate that the PD is willing to put Schultz’s credibility on the line in service of their own business model, but is queasy about her speaking out on other issues. I find it more compromising for the paper than for Schultz, and I sincerely wish someone had advised her not to write a column in support of this flimsy, illogical and probably illegal desperation plan.