Some voices in the corporate media have pushed for government intervention to relax ownership restrictions in order to allow for the creation of even bigger media conglomerates—which seems a bit like a hangover victim’s thirst for the hair of the dog that bit them. New York Times reporter Carr (5/9/09) confessed that while as a younger reporter he viewed media consolidation as “the dark overlords of the newspaper industry” meeting to “decid[e] how to set prices and the news agenda at the same time,” at this moment of crisis, “I’m hoping that meeting takes place. I’ll even buy the cigars.” [...]

Newspapers are faltering. Their traditional economic base is continually being eroded by the Internet, and this trend will only increase with time. The lot of print newspapers is unlikely to improve, and the sooner journalists and those who care about the press accept this foregone conclusion, the better. Because there is a critical question confronting journalism: When the publishing giants fall, who will pay the reporters? Text-based journalism needs a new business model, one that supports public interest stories and maintains financial stability, without relying overwhelmingly on large-scale corporate advertising contracts. As recently noted by Nation columnist Eric Alterman (5/11/09): [...]

SIDEBARS: Proposed Cure: More of the Disease and Did Google Kill the Newspaper Star? Corporate media are in a state of severe business shock, it seems—layoffs at newspapers large and small, due to advertising revenue drying up and readers ceasing to pay for a printed copy of a newspaper that they can usually read for free online. The state of the press has generated an enormous amount of attention in the press itself, with journalists and pundits offering any number of plans to “save” dying newspapers. Congressional hearings on the state of the media suggest that lawmakers are worried about [...]