Folks who study newspapering and the country's dead and dying newspapers are fond of saying the price of news online has been established. It's $0.00, meaning consumers will simply not pay for access. I know of only one Alabama paper charges for access, The Anniston Star. The largest papers share an online home at al.com.
In the L.A. times, a columnist has come up with a suggestion: follow the iTunes model. Maybe he has a point. Once the music industry stabbed Napster through the heart, millions of songs were sold through iTunes. Meanwhile over at the N.Y. Times there's a piece about the death of the TV Networks. Carry that thought forward. Without networks, just what would all of those affiliated stations do for National and International news? Have their own bureaus? Not likely.
So the big national newspapers die, the TV Nets go away and the local TV stations become strictly local. Just what are Americans left with as a source of news outside of their backyard? Alja Zerra? Bloggers? Stories swapped over the backyard fence?
[UPDATE: Some interesting observations on this subject this Monday morning in a NY Times story about the end of the Rocky Mountain News.]
[The Monday Morning Media Memo is a regular feature of this blog]
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