Among the many things I’m delinquent on writing about over the past few weeks, this article on how to “fix” the newspaper industry surely ranks as one of the most idiotic:

Newspapers cannot succeed as Internet ventures — not on the scale they need to survive — if they persist in using a business model predicated on giving away their news content and selling ads based on the audience that is drawn to free content.

No, that’s not the idiotic part. This is:

What to do? Here’s my proposal: Newspapers and wire services need to figure out a way, without running afoul of antitrust laws, to agree to embargo their news content from the free Internet for a brief period — say, 24 hours — after it is made available to paying customers. The point is not to remove content from the Internet, but to delay its free release in that venue.

Are you kidding me? This is the quickest way to render the newspaper irrelevant forever. Perhaps it hasn’t sunk in to Mr. Scheer yet, but newspapers do not own a monopoly on the publication of news online. When the major papers fail to report a story for fear of losing advertising revenue, they’ll immediately be scooped by weblogs and community journalists. Newspapers have enough problems with people accusing them of putting financial interests ahead of journalistic duties, they really don’t need to absolutely confirm it as fact.

Better minds than mine have long since pointed this out, but I felt the need to get it off my chest before the end of the year, at least.