Do I discern a trend here?
On July 19 my inbox received the following (edited) e-letter:
Dearest friends,
I'm sorry and sad to report that my syndicated Los Angeles Times
column, "Digital Nation," has been permanently cut by the L.A. Times,
as of today. This is not a surprise to me. The newspaper has been
undergoing difficult financial constraints, and has cut back on its
freelance budget first. The technology reporting generally has been
severely constrained because of the downturn in that particular
sector of the economy. Every publication in the U.S. has been
experiencing the same thing.
I've been proud and honored to be part not only of a major U.S.
newspaper, but also of an amazing community of people represented on
this listserv. I started this listserv because I got tired of typing
in all the addresses of people who wanted a copy of my column, but
the thing grew and grew and grew to thousands and thousands of
subscribers all over the world. I've been touched and moved by the
messages I've received from subscribers who have invited me to their
homes, who have arranged for speaking engagements, who have sent me
valuable and fascinating feedback. For a few columns I received
literally hundreds and hundreds of replies and commentary via e-mail;
the column I wrote about replacing school textbooks with laptop
computers generated over 800 e-mail responses.
Gary's Chapman's Digital Nation column was printed in the Los Angeles Times, but read by people all over the world who subscribed to a listserv that distributed the columns. Subscription to Chapman's listserv was free, meaning that about once every two weeks an informative and insightful column would show up in my inbox, giving me food for thought and reflection. I've subscribed to the listserv for years and gained many insights from the columns. He was one of my sources fo the issue of "replacing school textbooks with laptop computers" that I referred to over three years ago.
But what precisely is (or was) a free column? Chapman is the director of the 21st Century Project at the University of Texas, and though he may not be rich, he probably makes a comfortable living. But he also (rightly) received payment for his columns. In rather simplistic market terms, this freed him from his other tasks in order to write, and made the Los Angeles Times, where the column was published, attractive to readers who (it was hoped) bought the newspaper. But the Los Angeles Times has apparently come to the conclusion that revenues directly related to Chapman's column don't justify what it pays him. So the column has been discontinued.
Go to: Not only the mighty are fallen, or
Go to: Is this a requiem?, or
Go to: Something for Nothing.