By Vanessa Horwell

My column this month has little to do with mobile per se, but everything to do with the future of advertising, marketing, the media and well, my career.

Although I am in public relations, I am not isolated from the events taking place in the newspaper industry. As such, I cannot remain on the periphery of what's happening with this medium and these purveyors of content. You know why? Because they are a lifeline. And quite likely one of yours.

Without newspapers and the existence of quality journalism and print media, the PR industry and indeed the entire advertising industry will suffer in a very big way.

In PR, companies pay us to increase their visibility through various channels. They may advertise, but they are also relying on us to get their company in the papers, on television, on the radio, and then finally the Web. And usually in that order.

You will probably find that statement counterintuitive in a digital age where we all talk about convergence, emerging media, social networking, search and online ROI. But that's marketer-speak.

In non-marketer speak, it is much simpler. "Get us into The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal" is what many companies understand and see great value in. Not The Huffington Post or Gawker. I have to wonder why.

Is it because the average consumer considers the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal as bellwethers of mainstream media and quality, influential journalism?

Is it because these outlets still have one leg placed on the "traditional" side of advertising and maybe people just aren't ready to let that go?

So why aren't we doing more about this? Because we are a part of it.

If we save the papers, or at least help develop a new model and a new media value system, we will actually be creating more channels of business for ourselves and for our clients. Think about it what is at stake here.

The problem, as I see it, is that many consumers just don't hold the same value for online content as they do for print. They have grown up to online being free. They are used to content being available in an instant, but without regard for the efforts to create it.

Paper taper
Print still represents something fixed and tangible, and it is going to be one hell of a struggle for us to change this perception. Here's one example.

We had a client who complained that his company was being featured in Forbes.com, but not the print version. We argued that 15 million eyeballs seeing his story online would make far more impact than the 5.4 million print readers.

But the client wasn't convinced. He wanted the prestige of print. He thought it was more valuable, regardless of readership numbers. He also told us: "Who wants to be online if it's free?"

If something is free, it is because we haven't paid for it. We didn't spend our hard-earned income to buy it, so we don't hold it in the same value-system as something for which we have paid.

I'm no psychologist, but I that is pretty much how I feel about my paid subscriptions. I value them and look forward to them.

So, if I find content that I want, enjoy and feel is of value to my life, why should I expect not to pay for it? I have to pay for everything else.

Let us frame this issue in another way. Hire talented people, incur overheads and operating costs, and start giving away your services for free. Offer a great product, but don't monetize it. What's going to happen? Your business is going to fail spectacularly.

And that is precisely what is happening with the newspapers.

In media's migration to the Web, they forgot one of the most fundamental lessons about business: Charge what you are worth.

This is also the basic law of sales. It is very difficult to establish a price or value for your products or services when people are used to getting them for free. It is like the point of no return.

Value prop or will you prop?
In last week's Time magazine article by its former managing editor and now Aspen Institute CEO Walter Issacson, he talks about micropayments for content.

Yes, this is a start. But before we develop a "payment wallet" for content, we need to re-program consumers' way of thinking about the value of online content.

Until consumers can attach a value to what we are giving them -- online or even via mobile -- nothing will change.

We need to create a value proposition for content. We need to make it just as desirable as the products and services that our clients sell, and use us to market and advertise. Only then can we charge for it.

There will be attrition and churn in the process. That is inevitable. But like the business owner who ponders sacrificing margin for volume, we have to think about this with a long view. It's clear the newspapers didn't.

We will be creating more valuable vehicles for content: consumers will be willing to pay for them and advertisers will pay more to reach these consumers. And so begins a new chapter.

Because in life, there is no such thing as free. Somebody somewhere has to pay for all the sum parts that go into the "output" of content. We have seen that free equals the point of no return, and we have seen that free is not sustainable.

Talk may be cheap, but our industries and our work are not free. Nor should they be. Who's with me on that?

Vanessa Horwell is chief visibility officer at ThinkInk, a marketing communications firm in Miami, FL. Reach her at .