The Nation has a piece in its December 14th issue on how to save journalism. It doesn't involve the debate about charging for Web site access. It doesn't talk about alternative story formats that are light on news and heavy on presentation.
What it does mention is that the Internet did not kill journalim, in fact, newspapers started reducing news staffs and coverage years earlier. The Internet just accelerated the trend.
Here's a graf that struck me:
These trends went largely unnoticed because the dominant news-media firms continued to rake in colossal profits. By downsizing reporting staffs and ramping up less expensive journalism based on trivia, sensationalism and press releases, they were able for years to maintain boomtime profits. But the party was destined to come to an end, as readers and viewers gave up on "products" that no longer contained much in the way of news.
Maybe we'll start seeing more investigations back in more newspapers. Maybe television news will cover all government meetings and not just the ones that have a controversy.
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