Monday, January 11, 2010

There's no such thing as a free lunch

You might want to read this column — while you still can.

It's Mike Klocke, editor of The Record, the newspaper from my home town of Stockton, Calif. He writes most Sundays, and yesterday, Jan. 10, he defended his company's decision to create a "pay wall" to access Recordnet, the online version of the newspaper. That pay wall should be in place beginning this week.

For this small pond, that's big news.

The Record isn't the only paper in the Dow Jones Local Media Group to do this. SouthCoastToday.com is also piloting the pay wall. (Read more here.)

But why, in my blog devoted to high school education, is it the subject worthy of a post?

Well, because students in general need to learn this lesson — the lesson taught to me in Econ 1A at Delta College nearly three decades ago and still true today: "There's no such thing as a free lunch."

When I was in college, that saying seemed like a mere abstraction that belonged in the textbook and needed to be memorized for the upcoming test, not particularly relevant to my 18-year-old world. Now it seems different.

Most of the students I teach are poor; some are middle class. And yet so many, regardless of socioeconomic standing, manage to carry around iPods packed with music and go home to computers filled with software. Did they really buy all those songs? Did they really buy that version of Photoshop?

Once you discover these same students are watching new release movies at home on those same computers, you know you already have the answer to those questions. They may not have much cash in their pocket, but they manage to keep themselves fed when it comes to entertainment.

I realize, sadly, I am sounding like the old person that every young person swore he never wanted to become. In my day we did this. In my day we NEVER did that.

That's not what I mean at all.

If I were a high school student now, I too would know the names of all those sites where I could download free music, free software and free movies.

At the same time I suspect someone would tell me it is wrong to do those things. As a teacher of journalism and English who promotes creativity and original expression and who punishes plagiarism with a cruel hand, it is awfully hard to say nothing about ethics.

Students might respond: But those artists have more money than they'll ever need. What does it matter?

I might respond: What about tomorrow's artists?

Same thing with journalism. Yes, countless people have read Recordnet.com without having to pay (and without buying a print edition) for years now. Why should they start paying for something that had once been free? Well, for the same reason that people now pay sometimes up to $100 a month to watch TV when once it was free. (Yes, I know ... many more channels now!)

Journalists aren't necessarily artists. And they sure don't have "more money than they'll ever need."

But we need journalists. We need reporters to tell the truth when our elected official attempt to conceal it.

And if that costs 77 cents a week, well, a democracy is well worth it.

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