New York Times’ David Carr: News needs an iTunes model

Howls are already in the blogosphere over David Carr’s column today in The New York Times on news needing an iTunes model — a way to get people accustomed to getting content free to suddenly pay for it.

The premise that advertising is going to pay for the content is increasingly under attack. What Carr wonders is if something can rearrange the dynamic sufficiently to pay for news.

Most of the criticism of the idea will be obvious: News is not the durable good that music is, so the notion of paying for something you might use only once isn’t all that attractive to consumers. Like music, too, there is an abundance of free content that isn’t likely to go back into the premium stable.

It’s interesting how many people won’t reopen the idea of pay-for-view. Their view is that the debate is long over.