Changes in the way we exchange information and a declining economy continue to hammer America’s newspapers. It’s these factors, and not a dislike for some one editorial position or another that explain the force reductions across the industry.

Regardless of attitudes towards the editorial policies of the daily press, the fact remains that professional news organizations staffed by professional journalists are our best, most reliable, source of major news stories. For all their alleged faults they are the only game in town.

(And what about network news programs? For the most part they seem to deliver information derived elsewhere. The exception of course are video photo-op ‘late-breaking’ stories of car crashes and fires. But the nature of the medium seems to preclude thoughtful, long-form features and backgrounders that we get in the print press.)

Bloggers would be hard pressed for the news they comment on if it weren’t for the stories developed by their professional brethren. But at the same time bloggers have held the professionals’ feet to the fire for not picking up on important, but ignored, stories.

As aggregators bloggers need stories to ‘aggregate.’ Nothing wrong with that. That function is important for bringing to the blogger’s special audience stories that might have otherwise been missed.

As news gatherers and investigators reporters have decided advantages over bloggers. In what follows I understand that there are always exceptions that prove the rule.

One of the greatest is that they are employed. Bloggers often have other jobs or full time obligations. If they don’t feel like writing, or haven’t the time, or are writing incompetently, there is no editor or publisher threatening unemployment. You can’t lay off someone who doesn’t work for you.

Reporters (providing there’s a benevolent nod from some assignment editor) have time to pursue an investigation or write a long-form feature. If they are short of ideas someone will surely ‘suggest’ that they get busy.

I believe that in journalism schools novice reporters are taught how to use all the public sources of information, and what they are…city agencies, public records like property reports, police reports, corporate records and so forth. There are lots of them. My guess is that bloggers are far from knowing them all.

Perhaps a reporter’s biggest advantage is what I think of as an “Implied Authority to Ask Questions.”  The reporter can call someone, identify himself or herself as from The Daily Blatt and at least expect to be listened to. (No answers to questions guaranteed, of course.)

If he tells the interviewed source that the conversation is “off the record” or “on background” that source has at least a reasonable expectation of the conditions being honored. But call up a possible source and say, “Hello, I’m Joe Bloggs could you comment on….” click.

For the coverage of local events bloggers may have some advantages over reporters. For the most part they write about material they already know and are interested in. They probably have sources they trust and who trust them; general assignment reporters, coming new to a topic, may may not.

Carolyn’s Community, and One Can a Week do an excellent job, as do our sports guys, Zoom Zoom Tucson, Comic Matters, Tucson Tails, and Views From Baja Arizona… to name only a few. (In my judgement Hugh Holub has provided the best coverage of the border in Southern Arizona.)

To round out the offerings we have enough cranky columnists and their annoyed commentators to satisfy just about any reader.

On a final note, we bloggers are expected to credit the material from which we quote. At least “A NY Times report says” and so on. The expectation doesn’t always go both ways. Sometimes we’re granted no more than “A local blog reports.” Oh? And which blog is that, and what news source is it published in? Attribution should be a two way street.

A story about American journalism intersects a story about the internet as the NY Times announces the erection of a “pay wall.” Does this mean an end to unlimited free access to what is arguably the nation’s most popular on line newspaper?

The answer is a definite “Who knows for sure.”

Beginning next week unlimited access to the NY Times on line will cost you 15 dollars every four weeks…195 bucks a year. If you are only an occasional reader something will still be free: Twenty articles in each calendar month.

The Time’s “pay wall” has fascinated (and in some cases outraged) the digerati… not because of some belief that information just wants to be free but because the pay wall seems so extremely porous. In fact it took a Canadian hacker his lunch time to come up with about four lines of code that anyone could use to get around the little overlay that warns you that your twenty free visits are through.

The Neiman Journalism Lab on Tuesday reported on NYTClean, a bookmark app for Web browsers that “in one click, tears down the Times’ paywall” designed by David Hayes, a Canadian programmer.

NYTClean reportedly was able to skirt the paywall with just four lines of code, the Neiman Lab said.

On his website, Hayes said he built NYTClean after realizing the March 28 paywall was already in effect in Canada, where the paper is testing its new system before worldwide rollout.

“I’ve gotten thousands, tens of thousands of hits since this went up yesterday, especially considering this was a lunchtime project,” Hayes said of NYTClean on his site. “You just can’t see a wall like this without wondering how you can get around it. I love the New York Times, don’t say that I forced you to not pay for it.”  (via LA Times)

If fussing with four lines of code seems too complex, there are other holes in the pay wall. If an article is quoted by an aggregator like Huffpo it won’t count as one of your twenty freebies; if it is cited on Facebook account, or on a Twitter account it’s not counted.

An oddity about Twitter accounts is that the Times own Twitter account lists a directory of New York Times journalists and newsroom accounts on Twitter. Go to your favorite columnists or sections and there you find all their recent posts… Free.

The Times’s pay wall is an interesting test bed for the future of American journalism. Should a newspaper be expected to give away its product simply because it is not in a  dead tree edition?

Several years ago the Times charged 50 dollars a year for access to its opinion columnists and here at The Data Port we happily paid up. The practice was discontinued (I believe) when the columnists themselves complained they had lost readers because of the practice.

NY Times management clearly believes that 195 dollars a year will not be a deal breaker. It remains to be seen.

We notice that the Arizona Daily Star is no longer being published by Tucson Newspapers,Inc. The new publisher is the Star Publishing Company, doing business at the same old stand…down there on South Park Avenue.

Back in the day, Gannett owned a piece of TNI under the “Joint Operating Agreement” and shared ad revenue with the Star. Even after the death of the Tucson Citizen newspaper, which they no longer jointly operated as part of Tucson Newspapers, Inc., Gannett continued to get a portion of the advertising revenues earned by TNI.

The notion that something could still be jointly owned after nothing was being jointly operated has always struck The Data Port as a flat out evasion of the intent of establishing joint operating agreements in the first place. The intent was to help maintain the existence of print journalism.

We’ve been told that former TNI employees (the same ones who are now working for the Star Publishing Co.) have turned in their ID cards and business cards to be replaced by ones that do not reference Gannett.

What exactly does this name charge mean? Does Gannett now own part of Tucson Newspapers, Inc? Did the fiction of a joint operating agreement finally seem to be skating too near a violation of the spirit and intent joint operating agreement legislation? Or has Gannett stopped “sharing” the Star’s revenue?

And where does the Star’s owner…Lee Enterprises…fit in this arrangement.

It’s a puzzlement.