There is much blogospheric chatter right now about how newspapers will survive the combination of recession, with associated collapse in advertising revenue; the maturing of the internet as multi-media; and the obsolete business model of most newspapers.
kos and atrios are, rightly, much disdainful of the "Morton Plan"
"The Morton Plan" for saving newspapers. I call on all you publishers to decide individually (to ward off the antitrust folks) to charge for Internet access to your newspaper content: Offer your readers the choice of getting their paper online, with the advantages of expanded information and search capabilities, or in print for the same price. A modest premium would give them both. Charge advertisers the same for online or print space, based on print's current cost-per-thousand for advertising.
There is some suspicion that this plan will not work...
I, however, am much more interested in an alternative proposal that Morton hisself considers, and dismisses:
Another proposal for rescuing the nation's embattled newspapers involves putting them in the hands of nonprofit foundations. This probably would be a stretch, since a large newspaper would need an endowment of billions to fund a significant level of journalism, and even small newspapers would need many millions.
The Grauniad and Observer are just such.
They are funded by the Scott Foundation, which had assets of about GBP 800M in 2008.
So even now they ought to have over a $billion in assets, and a not unhealthy revenue stream from the Guardian Media Group operations.
Fortunately the Grauniad is my very favouritest newspaper ever.
So, we're good.
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