Having the newspapers become nonprofits is a good idea, otherwise the only news outlets left will be the ones owned by rich people who don't mind losing money making right-wing propaganda.

Just when exactly was this mythical golden age when "investigative teams and deep, experienced teams of reporters to monitor and hold accountable both government and private power"? I think too many journalists have mistaken Woodward/Bernstein and Murrow for being emblematic, when the fact of the matter is that journalists have always been a Versailles-esque court in DC. Access to power is inherently corrupting. Corporate ownership of major media inherently leads to less adversarial reporting. I would prefer to have a more openly partisan press. Let Fox call itself the Republican TV outlet. Let MSNBC call itself the Democratic paper the way that European papers have traditionally aligned openly with movements. It would be more honest.

Decent investigative reporting has long been found only in poorly remunerated free weeklies (Village Voice, for example) or in longer-form magazines. It will still be there.

People complain that the 24 hour cable news cycle encourages superficial coverage, and it does. But how different than the time pressure of a daily newspaper? No substantially I would argue.

Let the newspapers die. Maybe if they served their nominal purpose and didn't cover missing white girls in Aruba for months on end or simply transcribed WH press briefings and RNC talking points, they would be worth saving. But as is, good riddance. Something else will rise from the ashes and the fewer

New and exciting forms of journalism are sprouting, but new business models have yet to evolve to replace the old ones that are crumbling.

Well, people are making money in new forms of journalism, but they haven't been developed to the point where they can support a group of executives in the lifestyle to which they've become accustomed.

It's not that there isn't money to be made, there just aren't sufficient revenue streams to recreate the kind of top-heavy operation that American business culture assumes is normal.

Work is hard.

If a journalist's role is to hold accountable "government power" then what the heck are you doing talking about it?

The problem the media conglomerates (both print and TV) are having is that they are still trying to charge people for a product that is inferior to what they can get for free.

The future of journalism is ad-based and free, and to those who say it can't be done, look at websites like this one and Talking Points Memo, among many others. Or look at all the free weekly ad-supported papers that most cities still have.

The problem for newspapers is that because of the internet, 90% of their content is already old news by the time is is printed in the wee hours of the morning. If they focused on doing some serious original investigative reporting, then they might have some content worth reading. But most newspapers waste way too many pages on world, national, and business news items that are already old by the time they are printed.

Just in the article above this one you see a perfect example of why the mainstream corporate press is utterly useless and why they need to go to the wall!

The right-wing publisher of the Philly Enquirer decides to hire John Yoo, the torture lovin' apologist because the Publisher went to an elite prep-school with him! So, who cares about the fact he's in total disgrace? He's a D.C. insider and you NEVER lose your insider privileges just for illegally advocating torture:

The Inquirer’s editorial page editor, said he was surprised by the sudden delayed anger directed his way over Mr. Yoo. He said the decision to hire a columnist was his, but that “Mr. Yoo was suggested by the publisher,� Brian Tierney.

And why did the right-wing publisher advocate John Yoo?

"Mr. Tierney said the memos did not alter his opinion.

“What I liked about John Yoo is he’s a Philadelphian,� Mr. Tierney said. “He went to Episcopal Academy, where I went to school. He’s a very, very bright guy. He’s on the faculty at Berkeley, one of the most liberal universities in the country.�

"He was in my prep-school! He's a great guy! He's one of US! I read the memos about the torture issue, but basically that was totally irrelevant to my decision anyway! He's an insider and no mere whining from the plebes is going to make me change my mind!"

Screw these guys. We clearly need something better than the useless band of corporate whores that make-up the main-stream media.

The problem isn't that establishment newspapers are disappearing. It's that establishment TV news shows aren't being eliminated as well!

MSM, bought and paid for by the Rethugs. The Rethug hacks lie and the MSM repeats and makes it the truth. The blood of every soldier and all of the Iraqi people who died because of our invasion is on your hands as you lied to the American public. Die a slow death MSM.

Good-bye, print journalism. You'll blame a dumbed-down public for your demise, but it really has to do with your sycophantic coverage of all things liberal.

If you had kept some semblance of balance and impartiality, maybe you wouldn't be begging Pelosi and Reid for a bailout.

Ciao.
Posted by: McGruber

MSM, bought and paid for by the Rethugs. The Rethug hacks lie and the MSM repeats and makes it the truth. The blood of every soldier and all of the Iraqi people who died because of our invasion is on your hands as you lied to the American public. Die a slow death MSM.
Posted by: SteveA

hilarious. too far to the left or too far to the right?

maybe the problem is newspapers tend to report stories that don't match our preconceptions, so they must be flawed.

btw stevea, did you read the dispatches from knight ridder that debunked the administration's reasons for the war -- at the time? perhaps those talented journalists should be out of work. they deserve it because they didn't do their jobs. of course as buffalonian said earlier, their work wasn't truly investigative because it didn't appear in the village voice or a mag like vanity fair.

Who pays for news?

Well, in the case of Washington Monthly, I thought it was the CIA, right? Oh wait, sorry! "Some benefactors" who "used to be" in the "Peace Corps".

*Cough*

As long as paying people who don't work (CEOs) doesn't count against the bottom line, but paying people who do work for the bottom line does, we'll have this problem.

Pay your CEO 100 million bonus? It doesn't count against profits!
Pay 100 million to employees? It cuts into profit!

"There's something wrong here," as Goofy would say.

The problem with newspapers is that it is an mass advertisement supported business and mass advertising is going away. Journalists haven't figured that out yet. They think it's about them when they are only a part of a bigger problem that they ignore.

Alex Jones and the panel will tell you that bloggers won't cover local stories but Alex probably doesn't know that a local Cambridge blogger has been covering local news better than either of the two local weeklies for over a decade. Alex Jones and the panel will also tell you that investigative journalism isn't being done by bloggers but probably don't know that emptywheel at firedoglake scooped the NYTimes and everybody else on how much waterboarding was used.

I don't want to see newspapers disappear but I've listened to these fools talk around "the death of journalism" for 15 years and they still can't buy a clue or be bothered to do their homework. I've reached the reluctant conclusion that with fools like these in charge, newspapers probably deserve to die.