So, as many bloggers seem to propose, dismantle the traditional media by way of more democratic and community based blogging? Fine – but where is the money going to come in to send a hundred reporters to do a good job in Iraq? Who’s going to pay the salary of an intensive feature writer?

I believe we are in a transition period where mass media is in decline only to be replaced by comment, opinion, and churnalism. The only way traditional big bucks reporting will regain glory is when online ads generate the same income as print ads. Until that time journalism will suffer, and it will be a case of traditional media having to cut staff and holding on for dear life.

Major media will persist, just heap of specialized ones will have to move to the web, and daily newspapers will have reduced circulation due to moving to the web.

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Freelancers are good, but they are mercenaries! I think there is still a time and a place for good, old licence-funded journalism when it supports originality and innovation.

Twenty years ago, if somebody wanted to know what was going on at City Hall, he or she had to rely upon a paid journalist who sat through boring meetings and could easily pick up the phone and call the city manager, council members and the mayor to catch up on the latest municipal news.

Today, anyone can go on maplevillecitygovernment.com and get agendas, minutes and such and find out as much as most people care to know about that stuff. And yes, there might even be a Mapleville gadfly running a blog with a different point of view. Getting an unvarnished and largely dispassionate accounting of City Hall, however, will be a thing of the past once the Mapleville Courier goes into Chapter 7 and the presses are sold for scrap.

All that moneymaking stuff on the Net, like social networking, entertainment news and sports can go on making money without ever having to worry about what’s going on at city hall. No one will ever want that news badly enough to pay some reporter or videographer’s salary to Maplevillecourier.com.

I think there is some hope that a BBC-type publicly funded entity could be created that could keep track of national and international news, perhaps with some nod to regional coverage as well. The BBC is funded by the British government with a charter that allows no government interference.

Even if that dream were realized, there would still be a major gap on the local level. Local politicians, such as Los Angeles County supervisors, who each represent 2 million constituents, will be left to operated as clandestinely as they wish. As one of their aides told the LA Times, it will be like the Cheshire Cat: “All you’ll be able to see is the smile.”

I like the idea of the freelancer and/or group blog climbing their way to authority. I’ve seen equally poor journalists and bloggers, and in the attention economy we wouldn’t even bother with that old discussion.

Being as good as your word is what it’s all about.

web is making a newspapers’ market smaller by simply fulfilling (part of) the same role cheaper. First thing newspapers need to do is stop complaining and start shrinking.

However I’d still think there are some benefits of offering journalists long term protection (aka job) in order for them to be independent enough to really produce cutting edge stuff. Naturally there will be smaller number of those than they are today as most will be freelancers.

Actually greatest on-line competition to newspapers are web-branches of TV stations since they are essentially going after the same market – newspapers dumb down stories for internet, and web-branches of TV houses do a bit more in-depth reporting. It is going to be interesting to see who wins that battle.

bye
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