Locking up the news: Steve Outing notes that he's quoted in this Wednesday Denver Post story headlined Plan will charge for news online: The Post's owner wants to "bundle" services and reach younger readers., "but it's a tiny clip and he leaves out most of my arguments against the MNG plan."

The owner of The Denver Post plans to start charging for some content online as part of an interactive strategy that includes the "bundling" of services and a focus on reaching younger audiences.

Denver-based MediaNews Group, which operates 54 daily newspapers in 11 states, may charge online readers a "micropayment" for full access to certain articles that appear in the print edition. Nonpaying readers would receive an abbreviated version of the story. Print subscribers would continue to receive full access to the newspaper's website for free. ...

It may be an oxymoron that to reach young readers you make them pay, and the poll above that accompanies the Denver Post story should warn them that they're heading for hari-kari.

MediaNews president Jody Lodovic said the strategy "is to really place value on content, meaning changing perceptions that content is free."

Contributing to that perception is the fact that readers can access for free many stories written by local newspapers -- in the form of rewrites from The Associated Press -- on Yahoo, blogs or a competing newspaper's website. Asked whether that would be addressed with the new strategy, Lodovic said, "It's an issue we're dealing with."

"That's certainly a big topic right now of trying to stop that practice," he said.

Good luck with that, Jody.

If you lock the doors, you'll deliver fewer eyeballs to your advertisers, and your ad rates will need to plummet. It doesn't look as though Denver readers are willing to make up such a shortfall with micropayments: The poll above is a screenshot of results as of now.

Pay to blog: Huffington Post doesn't pay its bloggers anyway, and now some well-heeled aspiring blogger will actually pay to intern for Arianna Huffington's news site.

The current winning bid on this auction item at CharityBuzz is $13,000 with two more weeks to go: Jumpstart Your Career in the Blogsphere With An Eye Opening Internship at The Huffington Post in New York or Washington

Minimum Next Bid: $15,500.00

The auction's beneficiary is the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights.