From what I’ve seen over the years, if you want to have income from a website, you have to offer content people will pay for and subscribe to. Sadly, the most effective user of that model is the porn industry…

The Walrus struggles, does it not? I want it to live (though I think it has faded from its former glory.) I am, unfortunately, no so overburdened with cash that I can afford to publish it. My three year subscription fee will have to do.

Paste Magazine…a very high quality publications…is seeking “donations” above and beyond subscriptions to weather plummeting revenues.

Other examples exist. Meanwhile, “O”, the Oprah magazine, flies off of shelves.

It seems that these days “journalism” is interpreted to mean the ability to file rapid fire blog posts and NOT to do investigative research.

As long as audiences don’t care, there’s no incentive to change. The “market” will continue to serve its largest paying audience. As long as people are more interested in Paris (or Perez) Hilton than the state of their own democracy, I fear for our future.

Journalism is thriving, in my (admittedly self-interested) opinion. This blog is one example. The Tyee.ca, where I work, is another.

Newspapers are withering, especially large papers in small cities. They have already lost their largest advertising categories (regional retail, which no longer exists; and classifieds, which have moved online), and they are now quite dependent on automotive advertising (no joy there). More importantly, the do-not-call registry is stripping away the method by which they have (lazily) propped up their circulation for the past decade or so. As both advt and circulation revenues decline, so does the investment in journalism. In my view, newspapers are merely in the slow and painful process of becoming like television news — useful during a crisis, but obviously cheap and shallow most of the rest of the time.

This does not mean that investigative journalism or participatory journalism are either dead or dying. These forms will simply find ways to sustain themselves outside of the newspaper space. I believe that is already happening, as noted.

But new business models are unlikely to mature until after the old models fail. Put another way, the news business is undergoing a revolution, not an evolution. Therein lies the discomfort.

Darcy, are you saying no-one reads long, gassy posts or comments? Oh no!

Depends on the location, in my experience. These types of places becomes cliquey after a while, and like most forms of fame celebrity tends to breed celebrity.

We live in a culture where Paris Hilton is famous for being Paris Hilton, and that culture applies online as well: popular commenters at blogs tend to be featured and that breeds more popularity.

The entire Gawker network is essentially a series of blogs by people who were popular at other blogs. They censor posts vigorously (don’t try to criticize their editorial) so the vast majority of them are fawning posts favourable to the editorial. io9 is a sci-fit blog, but the editor is so sex obsessed it might as well be something else.

The online world reflects the evolution of our consumption of all media, particularly electronic forms.

If Journalism is Dying, or there’s a “problem” with giving it away for free it’s the fact that the majority of readers these days don’t take the time (or perhaps have the critical thinking skillset anymore) to read articles of any length. Readers in many cases are unable to parse an essay for meaning, and anything longer than 140 characters is dismissed due to a lack of time.

In a world where Google strives to make the sum of human achievement answerable in a single query, audiences have lost the patience for quality, well researched journalism.

The problem isn’t with journalism, the problem is with the audience. Hopefully the two shall meet again, because I resent living in a world where either Bill O’Reilly or Oprah Winfrey are considered “journalists” and Lewis Lapham is relegated to the sidelines.

The reality is that in the future, if you’d like to read the proceedings of THIS particular revolution they will be made available (for free) online.

Vancouver Sun stories dating back to 1987 can be uploaded using your VPL card, and the ProQuest / Canada Newstand search site.

Globe and Mail stories date back to 1977.