A while back, PBS ran a documentary about the news business. Called Newswar it was about the institution of the Press during a changing political, technical, and economic time. Part III "What is Happening to the News" I found particularly insightful.
Newspapers and the Internet have a very complex relationship. The documentary made an interesting point that on-line news services like Yahoo are largely dependent on newspapers for content, while other on-line services like Craig's list are undercutting newspapers economic base.
According to Saul David Alinsky: "When written in Chinese, the word crisis is composed of two characters - one represents danger, and the other represents opportunity."
This would certainly seem to be the case for professional journalists where their skills were never in more demand nor the resistance to paying them greater.
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