Like all dead tree papers, Newsday is in trouble.  Pull out the “extra” sections and you’ll see that the news and editorial part of the paper is mighty thin indeed.  Mighty thin.  As in it can barely paper the bird cage these days.  Such is the paper under the tutelage of the Dolans of Cablevision fame. 

And let’s not even talk about the Newsday website, possibly the worst of any major newspaper in this country.  Granted, it’s better than the Dolan’s other website for News 12 Long Island, for which I offer no link since you won’t be able to access it anyway.  You see, in order to get onto the website you need to input your Cablevision account number.  How many of you have your Cablevision account number memorized?  What?  It isn’t the most important number in your life?  Jim Dolan thinks it should be, and he puts commercials on TV to prove it, trying to promote its deep meaning in the life of Long Islanders while making it as difficult as humanly possible to use.  

With that in mind, welcome to the newest frontier of newspaper revenue: Newsday will soon have a brand new, spectacular, wonderful website.  And you will have to pay to enjoy it.

Cablevision Systems Corp plans to charge online readers of its Newsday newspaper, a move that would make it one of the first large U.S. papers to reverse a trend toward free Web readership.

The paper said in a statement late on Thursday that it is in the process of transforming the site into a locally focused cable service.

“Our goal was and is to use our electronic network assets and subscriber relationships to transform the way news is distributed,” he said on a conference call with analysts.

“We plan to end the distribution of free Web content and make our news gathering capabilities a service for our customers,” he added.

No, I have no clue what exactly this means either, but I’m fairly certain that it won’t be good.  Ironically, I’m both a subscriber to Newsday as well as Cablevision.  Will I have access to this new horizon of cable/newspaper/whatever it is, or will I have to pay?  Can I link to a Newsday story, or will that require a reader to pay to access the link?  Will this move mean that Newsday, in its effort to find new revenue streams, render itself a non-entity in the news world?

TechDirt picked up the Reuters story of Newsdays new initiative, and had this to say:

The quality of reporting in Newsday already paled in comparison to many other newspapers, so it just wasn’t worth the hassle — even once it removed the registration wall. I almost never visit the website any more — though, occasionally I check the sports pages there. Last year, Cablevision bought Newsday, and today, along with announcing it was writing down a huge chunk of that purchase, said that it’s going to start charging for access to Newsday online, making it that much less likely that anyone will care enough to visit Newsday’s website. The major area news is much better covered by the other newspapers, and various “hyperlocal” websites are popping up all over the place to cover the local specifics. Deciding to charge for Newsday online is basically a death sentence for the paper.

Unfortunately, I agree.  Newsday has already marginalized its worth by its negligble reporting, following journalist and editorial layoffs that have reduced its content to bare bones, if that.  And now they will chase away the few of us who remain by trying to suck out the marginal pennies? 

Newsday came out with its own report today as well, curiously noting that “specifics of the plan remain unclear.”  Probably not much reason to tell the good folks who still have a job at Newsday what’s going on.

Long Island is a large enough area to merit some local coverage, and that’s Newsday’s reason to exist.  But the Dolan’s attempt to monetize the Newsday website and somehow combine the cable television business model with the news distribution business model is doomed.  While Cablevision, for all its missteps and the abject hatred of its customers for its constant increase of fees and MaBell-like approach to customer service, enjoys the benefits of long-time monopolization (now changing since Verizon Fios came into the ‘hood)  making it akin to a cash machine, this isn’t going to work the same with Newsday. 

To the extent one can discern what all this is about, it appears that Newsday will cease to exist as an actual Newspaper and instead become some value-added benefit for Cablevision subscribers, as if it was a customer newsletter rather than a legitimate news source. 

Newsday publisher Timothy P. Knight said: “We are in the process of transforming Newsday’s Web site into an enhanced, locally focused cable service that we believe will become an important benefit for Newsday and Cablevision customers. More particulars will be forthcoming over the next few months.

As a general rule, whenever there are more adjectives than nouns in a phrase, it means they got nothing good to say.  There is a strong possibility that what Knight is actually saying is,

“We’re folding Newsday into Cablevision, and you will have to pay for one to get the other, even though Newsday won’t actually be a newspaper anymore and won’t be worth spit to you.  Oh yeah, and we’re increasing the price for cable because you’re now getting Newsday too.  Whether you want it or not.”

Of course, this is my interpretation.  I could be wrong.

No one needs Newsday that badly.  In fact, it’s questionable whether anyone needs Newsday, at its current state, at all.  We can get the supermarket advertisements elsewhere.  Newsday, say hello the Rocky Mountain News.