Blogger TJ Sullivan writing at LA Observed has a radical idea to prod readers into paying for their online news fix: Black out every newspaper on the Web for a week. Then see how many readers come crawling back, credit cards at the ready.

Reacting to the recent crop of suggestions that newspapers will have to eventually charge for Web access (see our post and this one from Time Magazine), Sullivan posits that none of that will matter if readers don’t realize the value of what they’re getting for free.

“It’s time to do more than join another Facebook pledge group, or promote a campaign like National Buy A Newspaper Day, or to purchase some overpriced t-shirts emblazoned with the message ‘Save a journalist, buy a newspaper,’” Sullivan writes.

His idea – and he’s put up a petition – is for all American newspapers, along with the Associated Press, to go dark for one week beginning July 4, 2009, and to publish only in print.

“Call it crazy. Call it costly. Call it whatever you want, but it’s no more drastic a measure than asking people to work for free,” Sullivan says.

When we first heard about Sullivan’s proposal, we thought, “no way this is going to happen.” Why would a newspaper, online or off, voluntarily give up a week’s worth of ad revenue? But crazier things are happening in the industry – forced furloughs, editorial staff let go, cancelation of home delivery and sometimes the entire print edition itself.

Of course then there’s the “what next” factor. Assuming that a week of dark news screens online catches readers’ attention, do newspapers immediately start charging? What if some do and others don’t? Won’t the Web audience simply go where the news is free? After all, charging for music online has barely dented the illegal download sites.

Nevertheless, Sullivan’s idea is a great ploy. We applaud him for that and hope that he might actually be able to pull it off. But there’s a lot more strategizing that needs to get done before then, and no one has figured out the answers to those tough questions yet.

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