After decades in which newspapers grew fat and happy as a near-monopoly, the business model is busted. Perhaps it is too late to persuade consumers to cough up the monthly equivalent of buying a vanilla Frappuccino (though it was once conventional wisdom that no one would fork over money to watch television). But if so, that's a shame.
You ultimately get what you pay for. And if there's not enough public appetite for the kind of journalism that holds politicians and public figures accountable -- ranging from Tom Daschle's tax problems to Citigroup's planned $50 million private jet to Barry Bonds's alleged steroid use -- then such efforts will wither on the digital vine. Of course, we might come up with a brilliant new strategy for financing newspapers. But don't count on it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/18/AR2009021803762_2.html?hpid=news-col-blog
The problem here is that people think that things are free. Things are not free. People won't have the time to do reporting or joke-telling if they have to dig ditches to put food on the table.
I routinely pay news sites for their content. I value quality intelligence. You get what you pay for. Why, I even bought a subscription to the New York Times website for thirty bucks or whatever.
Did a single person at the New York Times or the Washington Post ever buy a ticket to my show?
Nope.
So why all the moaning and groaning? Things are free, right?
