I know how to save journalism

Everyone knows (or should know) that the Internet is slowly destroying journalism as a profession. Papers are going out of business left and right. Even the ones still in business are bleeding ink.

People have floated a bunch of ideas to keep journalism alive.

These include charging micropayments for viewing articles online, best viagra malady having rich people endow news organizations, viagra sovaldi and even having government directly subsidize journalism.

I don’t think any of those will work.

Why would readers make micropayments when there’s always someone giving the same stuff away for free? (Also, micropayments would destroy linking which is one of the main traffic drivers for news sites.)

How many news institutions can survive on the generosity of rich people?

And do we really want our news to be state-sponsored?

My suggestion…actually prediction…is that Google will eventually step in to save journalism.

Why?

Because Google (along with most of us bloggers) is basically a parasite.

Without living, thriving sources of content to search for and link to, Google is out of business.

How many links on the Internet do you think lead back to the New York Times or the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, already? (Look! There are two more.)

In the end, Google will save journalism for the most basic of reasons: self-interest.

How will they do it?

That, I’m less certain about. Although, I suspect it will end up being some type of profit sharing on ads.

Think of it as a reverse pay-per-click to reverse the decline of the news business.

4 comments March 5th, 2009