Why archives should be free

Isn't it funny how newspapers will let you read the day's or the week's news for free, but if you develve deeper in the Web site to find related stories, background information and the like, you are often asked to cough up? Well, I for one disagree with this practice.

I think of news archives as history, and I don't really think anyone can own history. It may depend on whether you consider newspapers works of creativity, such as sculptures and books. Arguably, books can center around history, but they remain the property of their creators. Unless the author explicitly sells the rights to his or her creation, and does so to the extremity of no longer retaining any such rights, the creative work remains copyrighted to the creators.

Now, in the case of the newspaper, this is certainly not so. When a reporter comes back with a story, that story is sometimes hacked into little bits by different parts of the copy cycle or is placed in the newspaper looking relatively similar to what the reporter originally wrote. This creative work belongs not the reporter, nor the various parts of the copy wheel, but to the newspaper, and inevitably, the community in which it is consumed. It becomes a part of the community because, if it does its job correctly, it will inspire some dialogue, thus becoming a part of history. The news does and should be an active participant in our lives. We should be motivated, outraged, inspired by what we read in the paper, and then take those feelings to others.

By producing stories, the newspaper is an active part of the community that forever affects what history looks like. To better see my point, try to imagine what our nation would look like without the influence of the press. That's too broad. What if the New York Times had not published stories about Nixon and Watergate? What would our government, constantly shrouded in secrecy, be doing while no one was looking? Check out this analysis from American Journalism Review of the effect Watergate had on journalism.

I believe that just as documents are housed in public libraries for anyone to see, so should be the recording of the past as it happened. Newspaper stories have an active voice and undeniable influence on the world around them. Just as they record history, they also influence its course, therefore becoming a part of it that belongs to the public.