That model is clearly all but broken now, for many reasons: cultural, technological, economic _ and yes, to some degree, by the lack of vision by/short-sighted greed of corporate newspaper interests. But what a lot of us still slogging away in the mostly 1.0 journalism world wonder is: What model will come along now (or has to date?) that will value my skills enough to allow me to make a decent middle-class living and not pay me a penny a peek on the web?

You know from your time at Salon that that early online model, as elegant as it might have appeared, and as terrific stuff as it produced, could not have survived without relying each year on the kindness of strangers (i.e. people willing to support it in basically a philanthropic way). I am reading you now because I know you and am interested in what you have to say, but this forum is not a viable economic model either.

Those wires services and photos and scores you were reading back in the Ex newsroom (before Denise Austin came on at 2 a.m. and we all exercised along) were bought and paid for, allowing the originators to be compensated for their trouble. You took them at face value because you knew they were reliable, credible sources of information. Without some model that makes it worth the while of talented people to provide good information, you’re left to sort through all the noise and chatter that comes free, and hope for the best.

Maybe the build a better mousetrap (eye trap?) approach of the web will ultimately sort itself out, and good, viable, credible original content will find a place of value. But it’s not going to come for free. People have to pay the rent and clothe their kids. God bless the citizen journalists and the aggregators, but despite what another commenter says, yes, AP might have become Google, but Google is not the AP. Google is a collector of infobits from everywhere that has found a way not to pay (much, anyway) for the privilege. The AP was, and still is, what’s left of it, trained journalists keeping an eye on what’s happening in the world and reporting it _ originating it. Just like those baseball game stories and the photos from Afghanistan coming over the phone lines 20 years ago. That doesn’t — and shouldn’t — happen for free.

I wish the news industry had found a way to make a digital delivery system work to continue to underwrite good journalism. I’m not confident that will happen before a lot more carnage occurs. I don’t mourn the death of newspapers; it’s not the form, it’s the substance. Here’s hoping we find a way to make sure substance survives.

Very good story. You may recall that I went straight from J – school to work for a number of hi-tech magazines and I DID see all of this coming…not that I did a flippin thing about it…..
Oops, should have added good post! Waiting for your next post!

Very good story. You may recall that I went straight from J – school to work for a number of hi-tech magazines and I DID see all of this coming…not that I did a flippin thing about it…..

I’m sure it’s too soon to say … but I’ll ask, anyway. How *is* it working? I’m on the other coast; before today, I’d probably looked at the P-I site no more than a handful of times in its entire existence.

At a glance, it’s not how I would do it. At the highest, tippy-top level … from … two glances now …

1) The front is busy. Incredibly busy. So busy I didn’t want to click on any of it. And personalizing … 200-plus news sources? I want, somehow, for you to tell me what the best and most important stuff is.

2) Your bloggers sound like columnists.

3) I’d come back again, I think, for David Horsey.

4) Have you heard of multimedia? It’s very popular.

5) Events search. I bet it’s there but I can’t find it. Should be integrated alll over the place. Site search seems limited … I want to look at March 2004. How?

6) I doubt you need more reader blogs. You need more reader commentors. Reward the good ones.

Damn. I swore I wasn’t going to pick at it, too. Sorry. No offense intended.

Every step of the way, they had opportunities to change. Every step of the way until recently, they could even afford to change, to experiment, to try to figure out what was next. For the most part they were completely unwilling to invest in technology, manpower or infrastructure, opting instead to buy up other media companies or to be bought out and to push profit margins to the max in efforts to build instant wealth through the stock market. News was a cost center, not the product.

Gannett made a $1.2B profit as recently as 2006.

A newspaper chain that decided, a decade ago, to compete with Yahoo, could have done so. The Associated Press *could* have been Google News.

Burn the carcasses. I feel bad for a lot of individuals, including myself. But not for “the industry.” Anyone who rose above the level of managing editor at most any newspaper owned by a chain was complicit in the idiocy.

P.S. Great flashback to early Newspaper Land.