LOCAL PAPER REACHES FAR

Last Tuesday, Associate Editor Doug Clark's column perforated some of
the reasoning others have put forth for drug decriminalization. Last
Thursday, the High Point Enterprise published 11 letters (eating up
two-thirds of a page of newsprint) that skewered Clark for daring to
suggest that, "We'll never make drugs legal," and offer practical
reasons why we shouldn't legalize all drugs.

Many readers found it interesting that none of the 11 letters came
from the Enterprise's general circulation area but hailed from Florida
(2), Texas (2), Washington (2), California, Colorado, Illinois,
Virginia and Canada.

Six more published today originated in Texas (3), Washington,
Tennessee and Florida.

No, the Enterprise hard-copy subscription base outside the Guilford,
Davidson, Forsyth, Randolph county area hasn't mushroomed to include
the rest of the nation. And, our mail subscription list, like those of
most newspapers the circulation size of the Enterprise, accounts for
less than 2 percent of total circulation. Had one of those letter
writers been a mail distribution subscriber, he or she wouldn't have
received Tuesday's copy of the Enterprise before Thursday's edition
was published.

The answer is quite simple.

Clark's column also was "published" via High Point Enterprise online.
Somebody in one of the networks pushing for (a) an end to the U.S. war
on drugs, (b) decriminalization of drugs, (c) legalization of drugs or
(d) re-legalization of drugs or (e) all of the above spotted Clark's
column on the Internet and immediately alerted other network members.
With the urgency and zeal of a druggie searching for a dealer, many of
them responded.

Such activity is among the more primitive forms of newspaper
interaction with readers. Many newspapers, which have devoted several
staff members and have made considerable financial investments in the
processes, have much more sophisticated methods for interaction. But,
it's a start.

The vast majority of daily newspapers and thousands of community (or
once-, twice-or three-times-a-week) publications are involved in what
the industry calls "new media." A goofy name, many admit, but, after
sitting through and participating in dozens of discussions, we "great
communicators" can't seem to come up with a suitable-to-the-majority
alternative.

A major problem, perhaps the major problem, for online newspapers is
summed up in this statement by John Granatino, vice president of news
and operations, Belo Interactive: "Content is king, we keep hearing, but
if the king can't find any subjects willing to pay for his crown, he'll
be out on the streets, as we will."

Translation: Few newspapers, if any, have found a true profit center
online.

An article in this week's edition of Editor & Publisher (newsmagazine
of the Fourth Estate) is titled, "Across the great divide." The
subhead reads, "Publishers and vendors are still searching for
effective 'media-neutral' systems to easily link print and new media."
A pullout quote in the article's display reads, "Development of these
systems is very cost-intensive, and the last several years have been
difficult. The vendor community had the Y2K blues ... compounded by
the dot-com collapse, and now everyone is suffering from the recent
events."

The most recent edition of American Journalism Review includes an
article by Barb Palser titled, "Pay-per-click, charging for online
content may not be as poor a strategy as it's often depicted." Palser
trains online news editors for Internet Broadcasting Systems Inc. of
Minneapolis. The company builds and staffs Web sites for television
stations across the United States and Canada.

One of the major pros for online newspapers is that they dramatically
speed communication and interaction with readers. One of the major
cons is that newspapers almost desperately want to see some return on
investment from their online endeavors.

Get ready, folks, it's coming - as I've told you at least once a year
for the last three years. Somebody is going to come up with a device
that will charge you for every hit you make on an Internet site. When
that happens and it's put into practice, our cyberworld will change
almost as dramatically as the real world has changed since Sept. 11.