A modest proposal for the news industry

The belt-tightening at the Naperville Municipal Center this week started to pinch a little.

That's when the mayor and City Council discussed a certain line item in their 2011 budget: newspaper subscriptions.

Full disclosure: I had a conflict of interest with this one. I work for a newspaper. A newspaper they subscribe to. So I reserved my commentary for this space.

For each of the last two years, the city has spent $3,500 on subscriptions for delivery of three or more newspapers to the homes of the mayor and City Council members.

In the staff's initial polling of the mayor and City Council, two favored reducing subscriptions, and two favored eliminating them. The other five supported leaving the subscription budget alone.

Had I taken part in the discussion, I imagine it would have gone something like this. The following quotes from council members are real. As for my quotes, cue the wavy lines and harp music.

Councilman Grant Wehrli: "I get everything online for free."

Me: "I can't blame you. The journalism industry made a bad business decision years ago when it first put content online for free, even though it's nowhere near free to produce that content. Now people expect it to stay free, and the industry is imploding."

Councilman Dick Furstenau: "I've been subscribing to three newspapers for a long, long time."

Me: "Thank you. My job is somewhat more secure because of 'legacy media' types like you."

Councilman Doug Krause: "You don't get everything online."

Me: "Yes! You're right. We've got to give our subscribers some reason to pick up the unplugged version of our work."

Councilman Kenn Miller: "I agree. With newspapers, you get a feel for what's going on out there. Staff does a good job outlining what's important, but that doesn't give you a sense of Naperville."

Me: "Those other papers don't give you a sense of Naperville, either."

Councilwoman Judy Brodhead: "I'm a news junkie. I'll read those whether they are online or not."

Me: "The demand for news has never been higher. You can't tell that by our nose-diving circulation figures because so many news junkies are getting their fix online. And we currently post content online for free.

"How about this: We make like public radio and ask for your contributions during Web membership drives four times a year. Or we charge a nominal fee per Web item like iTunes. Or we only charge for premium Web content like videos and investigative reports and archives.

"Or, say we keep doing things the way we always did. Guys? Show of hands?"

The council ultimately agreed to trim its subscription budget to a few newspaper titles available in the mayor's office.

For now, at least, The Sun is one of them.

Contact Katie Foutz at kfoutz@scn1.com