The sorry predicament of the newspaper industry has given rise to a testy argument about journalism's future. In one corner are current and former editors who believe news organizations committed a fatal mistake by giving their content away for free on the Internet. These people think that a successful digital business model demands revenue from users as well as from advertisers, through subscription fees or micropayments.
Another camp favors philanthropic support. Newspapers, these establishment-types think, should be more like universities, with their independence underwritten by charitable endowments. Some suggest that newspapers should even be owned by universities and foundations.
A third faction, which includes most of the Web journalists I know, doubts both those models and looks to the growth of advertising revenues on the Web to support the Fourth Estate: Despite all the gloom, the New York Times now draws around $200 million in annual revenue from Internet advertising—not far short of the cost of its editorial operations around the globe. Without a print edition, the Times would be a smaller business but quite possibly a better one.
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