I hope people take away from this the core message, which is not “newspapers are dead” (I mean they are) but “everyone must experiment, because there is no alternative” and “news has always been subsidized.”

In other words:

1) whatever replaces newspapers cannot be supported by ad revenue alone, because, as shirky notes, ad buys are now *too* efficient (not to mention the loss of many kinds of ads that used to subsidize serious journalism)

2) whatever replaces newspapers must be subsidized by something else.

I have long argued that it’s not new forms of news we need — it’s new forms of business models for supporting news. *That* is where the relevant innovation will come — the rest is window dressing.

I bet there are some great and thoughtful comments to his post among the 148 responses, but since they’re dispersed among the trackbacks, I’m not going to take the time to look for them.

This part resonated with me -
“Revolutions create a curious inversion of perception. In ordinary times, people who do no more than describe the world around them are seen as pragmatists, while those who imagine fabulous alternative futures are viewed as radicals.
When reality is labeled unthinkable, it creates a kind of sickness…”

Actually, I found it oddly relaxing and reassuring… I always felt the sell-your-readers-to-the-advertisers model was a bizarre accident, as he puts it.

It’s like finally getting a definitive diagnosis from the doctor — we have no choice now but to buckle up and move on with those grand experiments!

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors. Thomas Jefferson

the man who reads nothing at all is better than educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers. You guessed it, Thomas Jefferson

Just as with any other commerce, if the demand for it sinks, then so be it. This point is not shared by liberal/progressive, or whatever they want to call themselves. Too big to fall is their mantra. Really?