Walter Isaacson took his case for saving newspapers to The Daily Show with Jon Stewart last night, rehashing much of the micropayment proposal he makes in this week’s Time Magazine.
He also retold his endearing yarn about going fishing with his friend Thomas who “had a theory that ice should be free,” which he told in Time as follows:
Mr. Isaacson failed to share the whole homily with Mr. Stewart, since the host interrupted with, “What are you, Andy Griffith? Where are we going with this?” Later, Mr. Isaacson returned to the free ice issue, which prompted Mr. Stewart to whistle Earl H. Hagan’s famous theme from The Andy Griffith Show.
Getting serious for a moment, Mr. Stewart made a suggestion—which Mr. Isaacson called “a very good idea”—that aggregators like The Huffington Post, The Drudge Report, and others pay to syndicate stories from The New York Times, Time, et. al. Mr. Issacson did him one better and suggested readers of those aggregators than pay to subscribe to those sites, much as they pay for cable and receive all the shows on cable as part of the package.
In related news, today’s The New York Times features an op-ed by Michael Kinsley headlined You Can’t Sell News by the Slice, in which the Slate founder rejects micropayments:
