Prediction: Mainstream press will open archives

Posted by: Stephen Baker on May 03

The big papers and magazines consider themselves the core source of news—the news that many blogs feed off for their comments and insights. But where do readers look for recent historial news, say day-by-day developments during the invasion of Iraq? Most of the press keeps old stories locked up in paid archives. The free stuff comes from the blogs (and a pot-pourri of articles that turn up on search engines)

Dan Gillmor has been pushing for papers to open their archives, arguing that they’ll make more by selling ads for those pages than by charging readers to see them.

I think it's just a matter of time before the press--including BusinessWeek--follows Gillmor's advice. This is more than economics. If we want to be the central narrators of our times, we shouldn't lock up all the hard work we did over the last years. Why cede history to the blogs?

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