There’s an old saying that if you’re good at something, you should never do it for free. Apparently Rupert Murdoch of News Corp agrees, as he’s been making hints about putting the content of a few of his websites behind a subscription wall. That’s actually no surprise. Even my local news radio station has been running stories about how the Tampa Tribune, which operates an extensive site at TBO.com, is considering a subscription model for at least some of its content. In an era when newspapers are a dying breed, with readership and advertising dollars circling the drain, they’re willing to try most anything to stop the bleeding.

But based on the article I linked above, it won’t be an easy transition. People are used to paying for their papers. They’ve been doing it for hundreds of years. The internet, however, is a different animal. Up until recently, news organizations have supplied web content largely free o’ charge, raking in some ad bucks but primarily using their web presence as a way of promoting their real product. Now the web is siphoning off potential subscribers, who don’t much feel like buying the cow when the milk and cheese are free. Granted, this is a legitimate concern–but as we’ve seen, it’s a lot harder to get somebody to pony up for something they’ve never had to pay for.

Will it work? Probably not, if the past is really prologue The New York Times gave it a shot with their Times Select, which put their opinion columnists behind a subscriber wall, but soon discovered that aside from a few stalwarts, there weren’t enough Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman fans to make it worthwhile.

But is that all there is to it? Granted, competition from new media is making things much tougher for the legacy operators–but in my view, that the blogs and alternative news sites are free is largely incidental. Their major influence has been to expose the fundamental flaws in “mainstream” news organizations, to the extent that a lot of people simply don’t trust the product. Whether it’s just sloppy reporting or outright bias, many reporters are not giving their customers the straight dope–and when you play your customers for fools, you shouldn’t be surprised when there’s a backlash.

It’s a real shame, too. As a journalism graduate, it really pains me to see a profession that I respect suffer so much. I also fear for the country’s ability to stay properly informed. At one time, editors and reporters performed a vital function in making sure that they got things right–and when they didn’t, they were clear in communicating how they got things wrong. These days, it seems that news organizations do more covering up than covering stories, hyping whatever promotes their opinion agenda while burying the things that don’t fit the narrative. Is it any wonder that more young people get their news from Jon Stewart than the big three networks?

Until the legacy boys do some hard soul searching, I don’t believe things will change much. Trust, once squandered, is a hard thing to get back.