Last week, when we posted a video made by freelance writer and FishbowlLA editor Tina Dupuy seeking payment for an opinion piece from The Tampa Tribune, our commenters were unsympathetic of her plight.

“If she made no mention of payment or terms if they ran it then she isn’t covering herself,” said one.

“Boo Hoo, now you know how newspapers and magazines feel,” said another

But every freelancer knows pain of fighting with a delinquent client over payment — whether its for payment of $50 or several hundred. The next time you’re faced with this dilemma, you’re wise to follow Dupuy’s lead and post a YouTube video. As the update above explains, three days after posting her video, Dupuy received an email from Tribune editor Jim Beamguard requesting her social security number so she can be paid.

And, when she tried to hit up the editor of the LA Daily News for some money she is owed, Dupuy learned that videos like hers also give some free (and much needed?) publicity to struggling papers. But hopefully papers won’t be holding on to payments in the hopes of getting some free publicity. That would be very bad news for freelancers.

Earlier: One Freelancer’s Quest For Payment

Add another item to the list of things newspapers are willing to try in order to keep themselves afloat. A story in the Times this weekend reports that the LA Daily News is going to try an experiment this summer wherein readers get to choose their own news.

The plan is to let readers customize their own papers with news stories they like and then print them in their own homes (so sort of like a dead tree RSS feed?). One of the catches is that the new service would also require a new, specially designed printer, which may or may not be included in the subscription fee.

Ridiculous? Probably. Isn’t one of the reasons people read newspapers (online or in print) is because they want someone who knows more than them to tell them what’s important (even if they don’t like it) and why? One wonders how many more of these little experiments the industry has left in them before a seven dollar monthly subscription fee begins to looks like the practical solution.