To charge, or not to charge

I found myself in an interesting discussion this morning with a conservative opinion columnist at the Review-Journal.
We were discussing the merits and drawbacks of newspapers charging money for content.
Interestingly, I was the one arguing on behalf of charging while Glenn, my free-market friend, was wary of the notion.
It reminded me of this post I recently read on one of my favorite media blogs.
The passage was in this interview, which is worth the read.

"What’s going to kill newspapers is not the Internet or the spectre of “free” — the fact others have gotten rich on “free” suggests there’s still money to be made even if it’s not directly extracted from the readers. What’s going to kill newspapers is that they’re frequently not that interesting; the corporate blandifying process has been largely successful, one newspaper generally looks and reads like another, and readers — particularly younger ones — don’t find anything that brings them back for more."