I speculate that professional journalists will begin to band together into non-profit style organizations so that they can do real investigative journalism and then market their content to any publication in any medium that wants to pay for it. This would be good because it would eliminate or reduce the advertisement based model that sometimes has a deleterious influence on news media.

I like this idea, but I don’t see how this removes advertisers. After all, the news delivery company would have to pay for those articles with something… and advertisers would be there to pay for ad space. Unfortunately, you still run the risk of advertisers dictating what news stories you run for their money (just like we do now).

@Rich: Say, there’s a kid in front of your house with a message from town. He says the blacksmith is offering a deal on horse-shoeing this week, buy 3 and get one free.

Too many print-readers fall on the same names to condemn all online news. There is more out there than “Rush and Hoffpo, or nearly all bloggers” and we all know it.

I think a well-crafted newspaper like the Times does more than just report news. It also helps preserve our language, helps teach children to read, and keeps us in touch with our society much more broadly than online blogs. It also acts as a filter against Internet telephone — you know, those false stories and rumors that spread like a virus on the Internet so quickly that they become accepted as true even when proven false because it was on the Internet.

I am not a journalist so I have no job at stake. But I am a concerned citizen of the world and I rue the day when “c u @ 8″ becomes acceptable grammar and stringing 5 such phrases together becomes prize-winning literature. Technology has its place, but sometimes it is better to be a bit behind the times.

I have to say it’s great. It’s actually the entire paper, but when you pop up an article to read, it’s in nice large type. You can download it in PDF form and save it to read later. No DRM that I’m aware of, so you could theoretically save it forever. There’s a mobile version. You can listen to the articles if you want, save clippings, and they don’t prevent you from printing articles. They are even set up to let you post articles to social networking sites or blogs. Seems like I’d be getting more for my money than with a Kindle newspaper, you don’t have to buy a separate device for it.

The Inky is in bankruptcy right now, and I feel like it’s time to put my money where my mouth is. In the past, when we’d try the actual paper, I’d end up cancelling because I couldn’t stand having all that paper piling up. Now I have no excuse! It’s worth $10 a month to me to try and preserve a local icon. Good reading, too.

I’m curious what newspapers in other cities are offering as far as electronic subscriptions.

I speculate that professional journalists will begin to band together into non-profit style organizations so that they can do real investigative journalism and then market their content to any publication in any medium that wants to pay for it. This would be good because it would eliminate or reduce the advertisement based model that sometimes has a deleterious influence on news media. Of course, I don’t think this non-profit model would work on a local scale, but it would work for national and international level journalism that would have a larger market. Basically I’m imagining that journalists will begin to produce and market their own content independent of large (and dying) newspaper companies just like many writers are going direct to reader with self publishing models.

Another model, which I would like to see someone try: only subscribers get to comment. Moderate the comments sections, keep them high-quality, and turn those sections into something that local politicians have to read. You’d get a virtuous feedback cycle there, I’d bet: people pay to be part of the team, essentially, which supports news-gathering, which makes it an attractive site for readers, which makes it influential, which makes it an attractive site for subscribers.

I could be wrong here, but I think it’s at least worth trying.

Another possibility: Tie it to a completely different paid service. (In addition to premium membership at Gotham Country Club, you get FREE access to the NYP!)

Print newspapers are dead. On the few occasions when I do read a print paper, it’s hard to find stories I haven’t already read on the net a day or so earlier.

Those who cling to print newspapers are like people clinging to typewriters after computers hit the mass consumer market.

I read dozens of different news sources: am I going to pay $ 10 per month for each one? … Probably not.

That’s just me, though; there may be others who value print journalism so highly that they will be happy to pay to support it.

As a content guy who worked once for a daily newspaper, I hope you’re right! But this will be a very tough challenge.

Thanks,
David

Of course, there are other revenue sources, like ads, that they can take advantage of. But just because it’s the web, doesn’t mean they can’t work out a way to get customers to pay for content.