Pay-per-Read

I sent the following letter to the Los Angeles Times (not published (see below)):

I hope one of Bezos's experiments with the Washington Post is with micro-payments and pay-per-read.

I am a news and non-fiction addict, a print media junkie. For many years now, that has included print on-screen.

I am a long-time subscriber to the Times and a few magazines. However, I am not interested in subscribing to the dozens of additional separate newspapers and magazines whose stories I occasionally read. But I would happily pay a few cents to read each such item.

Micro-payment schemes have been talked about for many years, but no one has put one together that covers a multitude of content providers. Here's hoping Bezos does it.

As has too often been the case, I sent this in too late. I read about Bezos's purchase of and his wish to experiment with the Post on the afternoon the story hit the Internet. I immediately thought about micro-payments. The story appeared in the next day's Times, of course, and the day after that, the Times printed letters about it. Only then did I realize I should have written one! Cursing my own needless delay, I then wrote and sent the letter, clearly too late for it to be seriously considered.

Subsequently, I have posted it in several places: here, on Google+ in a comment to David Brin's item, and in a comment on the story in KCRW's Left, Right & Center.

Plutocracy ('07)

I sent this letter to the LATimes in July 2007 (not published):

I'm not as optimistic as Brooks. She believes the Bush era
will "seem like a bad dream, a shameful, inexplicable interlude
in American history." I fear that this new, more brazen American
plutocracy will endure.

Corporations own both the politicians and the media. The amoral
politicians care only about getting re-elected, and their cagey
advisors excite voters over trivial issues. The profit-driven media
play along.

And finally, without any sustained outrage from their leaders or
their news, the populace stays just barely too fat, dumb,
entertained and distracted to care.

News Bites Considered Useful ('01)

This letter of mine appeared in Howard Rosenberg's TV column (LATimes) in August 2001:

Those who only see Headline News are dangerously uninformed. (Although they're better off than those who only watch local so-called "news" broadcasts!) But Headline News has its place.

Yes, some of the pop-up headlines -- CNN promos and celebrity gossip -- don't belong. But if you're a news junkie, the rest are not bad. To answer your questions, I know exactly what "G-8" refers to, and where Mt. Pinatubo is. After all, both have been in the news quite a bit in recent weeks.

I don't suffer from attention deficit; I'm 50, not 20; and I depend on newspapers (in print and online) for news and information, not TV. But that's just the point: Quick headlines serve me well at times, because I get all the details from the papers.