Recently, Panera Bread rolled out an intriguing experiment. Its store in Clayton, Missouri is doing away with prices and letting customers decide what they would like to pay for their purchases.
Can journalism adopt this model? Can we swap out the cash register for a “digital tip jar”?
We’re more inclined to drop cash into a little donation box in a public space. But in the private sphere of online reading, would our civic sense prod us to do the same?
Media outlets can provide a push by making a couple of changes:
One: Instead of calling what readers shell out a “fee” (a bad word that connotes an economic exchange), they can call it a “donation” (a good word that suggests social good.)
Two: They can reward those who pay, by acknowledging them publicly, for just being good people.
COLD CLIPS 