Two Problems Solved!

Second-Oldest Profession Should

Learn The Tricks of The First

Whores and journalists are in the same sort of business – catering to wants for a price – and those calling for government subsidies and other silliness to save professional journalism from the Internet should study how prostitution confronted its own New Age challenges and won.

Prostitutes Do It for money and journalists earn money by telling how others Do It. Both were confronted with the same sort of change – others were giving the product away for free – but prostitutes managed to survive and prosper, while in journalism the only way folks are getting laid is off.

Prostitution once had its market by the -- uh, well – anyway, because of a price and availability advantage. Good Girls were afraid of pregnancy and demanded a lifelong commitment of love and support before delivering the Goods when the mood struck them. Prostitutes got in the mood at the sight of a throbbing wallet and never failed to deliver the Goods at a reasonable price as long as the crane was working.

Journalism also had its market in a firm grip. Ordinary folk couldn’t find for themselves what was happening in the world, so publishers hired reporters to find it for them and then charged advertisers to wiggle their wares before the resulting readers. The readers paid a little, the advertisers paid a lot, the reporters got paid little and the publishers paid themselves a lot.

And Then. . .

For prostitutes, And Then was the double whammy of The Pill and The Sexual Revolution that suddenly made it chic and relatively safe to deliver the Goods often and for free. As in Free Love, bra-burnings, Friends With Benefits.

For journalists, And Then was the rise of the Broadband Internet, which allowed every Joe Citizen to both report and view news worldwide, sharing it at will and sometimes building vast audiences. Advertisers and their money come to vast audiences like flies to manure piles and the biggest piles usually draw the most flies, so journalists watched others build ever-bigger piles and mourned as the flies zipped right past their puny efforts.

So for both prostitutes and journalists, what they once did professionally for money was now being offered by amateurs for free. Same problem, but vastly different reactions.

Prostitutes embraced niche marketing and product differentiation. Since so many of their sisters were delivering Plain Vanilla Goods for free, prostitutes focused on multiple exotic flavors, highly discreet and private special services, and other things that generally fell under the “You Want Me To Do What???” category. Prostitution prospered. Just ask the last half-dozen or so senior elected officials and corporate execs who found the path to “pursuing other opportunities” suddenly beckoning when the records of their expensive and exotic hobbies surfaced.

Journalists, alas, stubbornly tried to charge for what is widely available for free, some even whining that those who do it for free are unfairly benefiting from the traditional journalist’s for-pay efforts. Unwilling to produce a new product that customers might buy, they tried to survive by selling a product that most customers already had for free.

Although unfortunate, the disparity of results between the two professions affords a unique public policy opportunity. Most would agree that prostitution should be eliminated. And most would agree that journalism must be saved. The solution is therefore simple.

We need only make the Leaders of Journalism assume the duties of Madams and have Madams become Leading Journalists – journalism will prosper and prostitution will be eliminated.

Count on it.

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