Kick-Off to the Coughlin Blog

Welcome to the show. This is something I vowed never to do. I have already learned a valuable lesson -- don't make promises you can't keep, not even to yourself.

I am now a blogger. I have caved in. I have sold out. This from a guy who has been contemptuous toward the internet for several reasons.

In the first place, the internet is like the backyard fence where gossip and vitriol are spread with neither accountability nor responsibility. It is virtually impossible for someone who is slandered or libeled to obtain satisfaction. Not even Tim Misny can make them pay because he can't find them. Nobody can. Internet "journalists" hide behind code names and slang handles. Who are these people? Where do they live? What do they look like? What are their credentials? Do they practice the rules of journalism, such as rule number one: Make sure you're right? Are they serious about this or is this their hobby? Are they screwballs? Are they in therapy? Should they be in therapy?

I'm not hiding behind anything. That's my real name up there. I also have a real editor. His name is Eugene McCormick. If you don't like what I write, complain to my editor. Maybe he'll refund the price of your subscription. Oh, wait. You get this free. That's right. It costs you nothing. I would like to change that but I don't know how, which leads to the second reason for my contempt.

The Internet is putting newspapers out of business and, frankly, it's the newspapers' own fault. Several years ago they began giving their product away free on the internet in a leap of faith that someday someone would figure out how to make money from it. That never happened.

What did happen is they conditioned their customers to expect to get the news free. Several years ago the Washington Post did a focus group to learn why young lawyers and government bureaucrats in the nation's capital no longer subscribed to the paper. The common answer was predictable: "I get it free on the internet and I don't have a bunch of papers piling up in the corner."

Young people don't read newspapers. They think the news will always be available on the internet at the click of a mouse.

Listen, when the newspapers go out of business, there won't be any news on the internet.

Somebody said to me, "We'll get it from AP."

What a naive assumption! When the newspaper industry turns off the presses, there won't be any AP. The AP is a collaborative among newspapers and radio and television stations who pay a membership fee to share with each other. A smalltown newspaper might have five reporters, but as a paid up member of the association it has access to the work of thousands of reporters world-wide. The bulk of this work is shouldered by newspaper reporters.

Every newspaper contributes to the news pool. The lonely reporter at the smalltown newspaper or radio station will file the first report of a mining disaster or a bridge collapse or a plane crash or a heroic rescue. A human being does that. It doesn't appear on your screen by magic.

In the meantime, I have an ulterior motive for doing this. Now that I'm semi-retired from Fox 8, I don't want you to forget about me. I'm trying to lure you in so that in the spring you'll buy my overpriced book. It will probably be the last thing I write that will actually be printed on paper. More on that later.

See you tomorrow.