In case you missed it, the New York Times' Katharine Seelye wrote a long piece for Monday about the "free ride" that newspapers are currently giving to readers online - free as in, no money changing hands directly from reader and newspaper. Of course, there's advertising on the website, hence the "cost" that a reader is paying to check out the content.

Oh, that's right - Doc says it's "writing," not content. Actually, they're both right. Our friends at Dictionary.com define content as the following:

con tent Pronunciation Key (kntnt) n.

1. Something contained, as in a receptacle. Often used in the plural: the contents of my desk drawer; the contents of an aerosol can.
2. The subject matter of a written work, such as a book or magazine. Often used in the plural.
3. 1. The substantive or meaningful part: “The brain is hungry not for method but for content, especially content which contains generalizations that are powerful, precise, and explicit� (Frederick Turner).
3. 2. The meaning or significance of a literary or artistic work.
4. The proportion of a specified substance: Eggs have a high protein content.

We'll stick with #2 or #3.2, just for argument's sake. Outside of the fact that the issue involved in the NYT piece is completely ignored, the "stale stuff" that Searls is asking for the key to is much more valuable to the rest of us than the new stuff. Sure, the new stuff is going to get a stack of readers now, but the old stuff is the things that us bloggers are actually linking to - or attempting to stay linked to.

The Times' content already grants it "the authority it deserves." If it didn't already have it, even though many of us may bash the paper's beliefs or slant, then we wouldn't be referring to the paper at all, and it would fade off into the sunset. This isn't EPIC just yet.

The material contained in the newspaper is content. Calling it "writing" alone is missing the point. Every use of the term "consumers" isn't a shot at the people being described. It's a generally accepted word to make up individuals who use, eat, drink, read, digest, take, or throw away anything that is bought, sold, traded, bartered for, or given. Sure it's simplistic and is perhaps taken negatively by some, but it's not the end of the world. Having a problem with it being used in a casual sense is a crusade that is probably comparable to the fight against words like Xerox and Kleenex becoming the mainstream terms for the products those brands represent. It's all about perspective - if you don't believe you are a consumer, then good for you. But just because others aren't so concerned about the label doesn't mean they're all still in The Matrix.