The New Repub­lic has of late played hos­ted to a debate on demo­cracy and the news media. Hard-boiled read­ers of this blog will know that it doesn’t believe in the demo­cratic nour­ish­ment provided by news con­tent, but is more agnostic on the role played in demo­cracy by media institutions.

Seconds out, in the newsprint-coloured trunks, Paul Starr steps in with Good­bye to the Age of News­pa­pers (Hello to a New Era of Cor­rup­tion). Con­tinue read­ing →

Does Sky News want to run the World Ser­vice? Well, it does in Aus­tralia. Accord­ing to the the Sydney Morn­ing Her­ald:

A dis­pute has erup­ted between the ABC and the sub­scrip­tion tele­vi­sion industry, triggered by a call by the pay TV chan­nel Sky News for taxpayer-funded broad­casters to com­pete with the private sec­tor for gov­ern­ment money to set up new chan­nels. Con­tinue read­ing →

More on the ‘micro­pay­ments for news’ debate, this time from Whar­ton biz school profs:

News­pa­pers and magazines, saddled with high fixed costs and high dis­tri­bu­tion costs, have been hit by both the free cul­ture online and the ease with which their product — which is costly to pro­duce but easy to copy and paste — is hijacked by free sites put together by unpaid blog­gers. Most papers have resor­ted to offer­ing their con­tent for free, but online ad rev­en­ues alone have not covered their high fixed costs. Con­tinue read­ing →