Death of a Newspaper

[Fading Fast]

Free has become a four letter word beginning with 'F.' That and Andy Warhol's "Everyone's fifteen minutes of fame," prediction. This, do it for nothing malaise is widespread, and, there's always someone to take advantage of it.
A while ago I was contacted by a small film company: "Would I like to see my vintage car appear in an advert or promotion film?" I can't remember the details.
My reply was to tell them that I get £350 plus fuel, plus dry cleaning expenses for a wedding, and that's the charge they would have to pay, up front, if they wish to use my car for filming. Did they want to see a gallery of photos? They didn't respond for a few days and when they did it was to say that in return for using my car I would get much greater awareness through the publicity, and doing each other reciprocal favours meant we could legally avoid any income tax liability.
In other words: "You have a rare car, that we would like to use, but we are not prepared to pay for the privilege of." So it's pro bono. They probably found someone who thought that their car might become as famous as The Jaguar in the 'Inspector Morse' shows.

I've been told all the wonders about having my pieces "published -" all the "eyeballs," the "personal brand building," blah, blah, blah. Like Lizzie and others, I already have my name out there on published pieces both before and after the internet and that and $2.50 gets you a subway ride. I get paid to write or I don't do it - all this barter, publicity stuff means nothing to me. While barter can work and legally (or not - I don't know the law on barter) reduces taxes, and there are probably some intelligent internet barter deals in place, in general, I think all this free exchange for "eyeballs" or "hits" or "brand building" is a house of cards that will crash and wipe out a meaningful subset of internet companies. Maybe then, the survivors will have to start paying for content - we'll see, I have been wrong before.

 

[Harp]

...avoid any income tax liability.... The Jaguar in the 'Inspector Morse' shows.

Morse's Mark 2 Jaguar is a classic as was the man himself. I had a collision with the Internal Revenue Service over my '94XJS Jaguar convertible-another classic, gone but not forgotten.

 

[MisterCairo]

Morse's Mark 2 Jaguar is a classic as was the man himself. I had a collision with the Internal Revenue Service over my '94XJS Jaguar convertible-another classic, gone but not forgotten.

One of my favourite cars!

 

[Capesofwrath]

That vinyl roof and the non standard colour was a bit of a disaster though.

 

[Cricket]

And we hope it continues as well! What's your circulation? The I never worked for a paper bigger than 100,000 in circulation.

I graduated from the University of Florida's college of journalism with a B.S. in editing when togas were normal attire.

Our town is very small but we are under 10k in circulation. Worked for the state newspaper giant daily once and their business has suffered. The once massive Sunday edition of the mega news giant now takes a mere few minutes to read because it's dwindled down in content and size.
But for our rural, community coverage...I still wake up everyday loving what I do and the business I'm in. Once you get ink on your hands, you can never wipe it off