Can the Web save newspapers?

This recent article in the Toronto Star suggests I've got to go a little further beyond my previous breakdown.

Comparing news to music is a woefully inadequate justification for a newspaper attempting to charge for its content. iTunes was successful because it listened to what both artists and their fans wanted - for fans to be able to buy as little as they want, not just want the producers pushed. If I like "a song or two," it used to be that I'd still be forced to buy the whole album, or just not buy anything at all. Today, the artist can get a sale because someone can go ahead and just buy a song or two.

But the issue is that a song is a single inimitablething. If I want to listen to Stevie Wonder sing Isn't She Lovely? I can't substitute that with Frankie Lymon singing Why Do Fools Fall In Love? They are two different songs. News is a totally different thing - if a plane crashes, who owns that information? Certainly not the New York Times, or Reuters or Associated Press. News is often public. If I'm walking down the street and witness a collision between a taxi and a streetcar, is there someone standing by to charge me to watch the emergency crews respond? Life isn't owned by anyone who can charge for it.

What, exactly, does a newspaper company sell? "News"? Stevie Wonder doesn't sell "music", and you can get music anywhere. Stevie Wonder sells "Stevie Wonder's music", and there's only one place on earth where you can get Stevie Wonder's music - from Stevie Wonder. That's why he can sell.

Let's cut to the chase - no newspaper is going to make money attempting to charge people for news that is readily available everywhere else for free.

So, if a newspaper company is going to survive, what is it going to sell? It's got to sell something that no one else is selling. What is the New York Times selling?

• something for New York Times fans to read
• opinion about what's happening in the news
• a target market for advertisers who wish to reach the kind of people who read the New York Times

What must, therefore, come forward, is the opinionof New York Times writers. The analysis, the insight, the punditry, those who speak to the issues with the New York Times tone and culture and voice and style. You can't get that from the Wall Street Journal or USA Today.

This opinion can be disseminated on paper but, again, why bother? Paper production carries with it too much cost to be recovered before profit kicks in. People want information when, where and how they want it, and that is increasingly via electronic and mobile media.

As such, I would suggest that the answer to the question of the Star article is "no", the web cannot save newspapers because the web is electronic media that competes squarely with print media. The segment of the population who still values sitting in the living room on a Sunday afternoon going through the Sunday paper is shrinking, and that's driving newspapers' shrinking revenues.

Nor should news outlets bother even asking the question. The paper is not to be saved -- it's the opinion of the news that's to be disseminated via media.

And, I've said it before and will say it again - news outlets must value as a strength their expertise in and obligation to provide legitimacy to news. It's one thing to get a tweet saying "Michael Jackson died," but we all waited to hear from "a real news source" that it was in fact true. News outlets have built a system of fact-checking that is second to none. We, society, need to know that what's happening is what really is happening. Anyone can start a rumour and, these days, get that rumour around the world and back in literally minutes. Today, more than ever, we need systematic rigour to confirm that some news is in fact reality, truth, or at least verifiable.

Standard Oil understood that, while the window of lamp oil demand was closing, motor oil demand was opening up a big door. They sold oil, and would sell to whomever was buying. Nearly 100 years after the breakup of Standard Oil, its two largest pieces, Exxon and Mobil, are one again, and still relevant after so many eras have come and gone.

News services have

• the skills and infrastructure to help us determine what is news, and
• the experience to help us interpret what to think about it.

The press is important because freedom of the press is necessary to a free society. The "press" must transform to stay relevant, and continue to contribute to, support and protect freedom.

BHM Toronto history - Thornton Blackburn

This 1846 painting of King Street East features Toronto's first taxi cab, "The City" with none other than Thornton Blackburn himself (seated atop) conducting the horse-drawn coach.

 
Black History Month is for everyone. Each year, we remember the significance of inspiring Black people in history. It is a sadly wasted opportunity if this exercise begins and ends with Marin Luther King, with all due respect to the towering legacy he left. It's further unfortunate if we're left with the notion that "Black History" only happened in the United States. Colonialism distributed Africans throughout Europe and the Americas, and to the furthest reaches of the global diaspora we'll find wonderful stories and rich history.

As I'm in Toronto, we'll look at a few Black people who've had an impact on the region's development, making  contributions as well as just being interesting yet seldom recognized parts of GTA history. A most appropriate person with whom to start is none other than Thornton Blackburn.

Who? Exactly. What a shame it is that his is not a household name, for Thornton Blackburn started the very first taxi service in Toronto, in 1837, 40 years before Canada became a nation.

Seeing a need for getting around, he commissioned the build of a four-person carriage, and started "The City", the first taxi service in Toronto, running along King Street. The City's colours - red and yellow - were eventually adopted as the first corporate colours for what would subsequently come on stream as the TTC.

Born into slavery in Maysville, KY, he escaped via the Underground Railroad with his wife Lucie, northward to Detroit before being caught and jailed, awaiting return to their owners in Kentucky. Lucie escaped by changing clothes with a visitor! and dashed to Toronto. Thornton's escape proved far more difficult, but before he could be returned, a group of sympathizers broke him out of jail. The melee incited what would become known as "the Blackburn Riot". Blackburn escaped, continuing northeast along the railroad to Toronto, the largest Railroad destination outside the United States.

There, Thornton and Lucie settled and lived a long, noble, quiet yet productive life from their home on Eastern Avenue at Sackville, and his legacy lives on, far removed from the tumultuous beginnings of a slave on the run. Born into an environment wherein it was against the law for him to go to school or learn to read, his ambition and internal sense of "I can" is a miraculous bursting forth of the human spirit, an exuberant throwing off the shackles of externally and wrongly imposed limitations on the capabilities and potential of a bright mind.

Thornton and Lucie Blackburn were members of the Toronto elite - affluent, mobile, decision-making, opinion-sought. A familiar face in social circles and to the common alike, he was a core part of the anti-slavery and safe-haven movement that found Toronto the most logistically advantageous city in the world from which to make a difference; Toronto was beyond the legal control of US soil, protected by British law, yet within proximity to the US such that it could both provide safe-haven to escaped slaves as well as a command centre for abolitionist organization and informational dissemination.

Thornton died in 1890, and was laid to rest at the Toronto Necropolis alongside friend George Brown, "father of Confederation", founder of the Toronto Globe (predecessor to the Globe and Mail newspaper), leader of the Reform movement's transition into the Liberal Party of Canada West, and an active abolitionist.

Diversity had been a part of Toronto vision, leadership, nobility and society. Diversity helped make Toronto a great city. Any discouragement of continued diversity at the highest corporate and civic levels is a regression and a failure to uphold the legacy of Toronto's heritage.

It also sheds new light on the tensions of this city's transportation infrastructure. Toronto had visionaries who saw needs and could meet them appropriately. Today's gridlock, ever increasing commute times, insufficient public transit, and botched St. Clair line demonstrate that we have fallen short of the pace and standards set by an escaped former slave. Toronto ought to be newly inspired by his memory to "get it together",  "figure it out."

A note on sources - while much of the historical facts about Thornton Blackburn and others in this four-part series are generally available online, I'm very thankful to my friend Paul Comarmond for sharing with me a wonderful book by Karolyn Smardz Frostentitled I've Got A Home in Glory Land: A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad, which provides a grand overview, remarkable details and a wealth of insights into the Underground Railroad, Toronto's significance at the end of the line, and the many players, great and small, caught up in the changing paradigms from antebellum to Civil War to Reconstruction. Dr. Frost led the excavation of the site of the Blackburn home in 1985, figuratively and literally unearthing a heretofore forgotten history, prompting a 20-year journey of investigation and discovery, and rescuing a legacy that might otherwise have been lost forever. I've no words to express my appreciation for all I'm learning as a result of her monumental work. Of course, her book is highly recommended, "must reading".