That’s the fundamental question asked by Mr. Peter Sheer, the Excutive Director of the California First Amendment Coalition (a non-profit organization promoting free speech) put forth yesterday in the San Francisco Gate.

He makes the argument that without the free content put forth by reputable news organization, “news”, as we know it would be relegated to the digital “fishwrap” of blogs, news aggregators, and so on. Newspapers are having a hard time with monetizing their traffic — many are doing abysmally compared to their newsprint analogues — therefore, it would be wise to remind everyone of the true value of newspapers, and the value of the free information that is given away.

So, what’s his solution?

A “temporary embargo”, as he puts it. In his own words:

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.

A temporary embargo, by depriving the Internet of free, trustworthy news in real-time, would, I believe, quickly establish the true value of that information. Imagine the major Web portals — Yahoo, Google, AOL and MSN — with nothing to offer in the category of news except out of date articles from “mainstream” media and blogosphere musings on yesterday’s news. Digital fish wrap. And the portals know from unhappy experience (most recently in the case of Yahoo) just how difficult it is to create original and timely news content themselves.

Well, this is laughable for so many reasons both theoretical and practical; but what Mr. Sheer is effectively proposing is that all online news sources should band together and withhold a particular service so that they can all bargain for better conditions for themselves.

Doesn’t that sound like unionizing?

It does to me — in a deliciously reverse-logic sort of way.

Huge corporations needing to come together because a pre-existing condition (free news) prevents them from securing enough profits at the expense of The People.

Anyway — Mr. Sheer’s proposal is quaint in a fashion, but it would never work. It would require every single news organization to support htis initiative who has an on-line component; even if one major player (or minor player) didn’t sign on, they would have the unrestricted field to publish free up to date and contemporary news that none of their rivals would. Huge traffic bonus. Another practical issue is that even if free, people would still find a way to figure out to get out behind paid walls and find the news. Hell — any blogger can turn on the radio or TV, and start blogging about the news that way. By aging free news, you’ve just promoted them to all to news sources.

Mr. Sheer’s proposal brings up a good point: readership is declining across the board, and something needs to be done. He laments that newspaper sites are having a hard time monetizing their traffic to the extent of their physical bretheren.

I think there are a lot of issues at stake — but I think strategies like he suggests would ultimately be self-defeating, because news, as I learned from a panel discussion last week, has really become a commodity, like sugar, bread, or flour.

The future of news, I think, is to approach it like how any company approaches trying to monetize a commodity — and that is by injecting value in all kind of domains, and by reaching out and expanding The Brand, so that newspaper companies are not defined by the medium that they were born into.

In other words, perhaps the answer isn’t unionizing, but “Starbuck-izing” — its less an issue of monetizing traffic (although that’s clearly an issue), but more of a brand strategy or management one. Having said that, its something that’s easier said than done — it requires a consistent and thorough changing of their entire existence, and probable transformation from newspaper to “big M” Media Companies, providing news regardless of the medium.

There aren’t any real examples of this yet, but the onus is on Newspapers to evolve fast enough, I think, to accomodate these economic pressures.

Because “unionizing” online news clearly isn’t the answer.