Freedom Isn't Free

The framers of the constitution protected freedom of the press, but they didn't mean that the press ought to be free in the sense that no one ought to pay for it. In fact, they believed that the cost of not having a free flow of information in a democracy was too high to pay. "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be," wrote Thomas Jefferson.

The central conversation in the media business these days is how to preserve and provide quality journalism and in-depth reporting at a time when consumers and readers expect to get them for free on the Internet. Information may want to be free, as the Web axiom suggests, but sending correspondents to Baghdad and Kabul and everywhere in between costs money. Information may want to be free, but knowledge and reporting and insight are expensive--and valuable.

Walter Isaacson's thought-provoking cover story "How to Save Your Newspaper" suggests that the road we all went down--not charging for content online--may well have been the wrong one. He says a system of micropayments could be the answer to getting great and important journalism to pay for itself. But only consumers can ratify and verify that idea. And I think people would. I know there are 3.3 million TIME subscribers who believe that the perspective and knowledge we give you every week in the magazine and every day online are worth paying for.

Walter's story is based on the Hays Press--Enterprise lecture that he is giving this week at the University of California at Riverside. He sent it to TIME.com managing editor Josh Tyrangiel and me for advice, and we thought it had the makings of a groundbreaking cover story. Walter is, of course, a former managing editor of TIME and now president and CEO of the Aspen Institute, with which we are collaborating this summer on a summit in Aspen that will explore the different ways each of us defines health. (For more information or to register, go to www.aspenhealthforum.org.

Accompanying Walter's story is a terrific piece by our well-known tech editor-at-large Josh Quittner, who believes that the salvation of journalism may lie in a combination of the next generation of e-readers and micropayments. Josh, a former editor-in-chief of Business 2.0, has spent more than a year thinking and reporting on this idea. The advent of the iPhone and devices like it--killer gadgets connected to a store where one can make a micropayment with the touch of a button--was his eureka moment. I think Walter's and Josh's insight, reporting and experience are well worth paying for. I trust you do too. Freedom isn't free--nor is great journalism.

Richard Stengel, MANAGING EDITOR