Comments on: WHO WILL REPORT WHEN ALL THE REPORTERS ARE GONE?

By: hbj

hbj — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 03:52:49 +0000

It’s time to wake up and smell the stolen coffee.

Just cause there’s a demand doesn’t mean someone can make enough money off it to generate a profit off a good product.

If anything can be legally copied anywhere (legally, in that apparently no one gives a damn), there is no revenue model for news comparable to paper.

Take it from the (now defunct) music business.

By: dave

dave — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 06:30:06 +0000

I agree – there is a demand, I also agree that there’s gotta be some sort of funding or ad-based revenue model. I don’t know how long “free” is going to work for something as important as real fourth-estate journalism. At some point, you get what you pay for. And that’s disturbing if nobody’s paying anything.

By: admin

admin — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:06:12 +0000

I have my doubts that the expensive, time-intensive investigative journalism can survive without deep pockets to support it. And with Internet journalism largely reduced to blogs about what people can see out their windows, I’m not sure the Fourth Estate can remain the stalwart defender of the little guy and the lost cause.

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 23:08:47 +0000

I feel like there’s always going to be market for legit news. Someone on the internet is going to figure that out and make a lot of money as cable news makes its decent into crap-ville.

Maybe even after more of our newspapers die off, a few decent ones will make their home online. I read the New York Time online once in a while and the format works just fine.

As a random side note, remember the Lone Gunmen from the X-files? Those guys were awesome.
(Non-dorks click here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lone_Gunmen)