A decade ago, I gave a speech at a college graduation. I told the graduates that corporate ownership of media, particularly publicly traded media conglomerates, had changed the equation for journalism and its consumers. You could have an excellent product with adequate profits, I said. Or you could have an adequate product with excellent profits. Perhaps that is no longer the case. Maybe online niche publications represent the future. However this proceeds, it is the content, not the platform that delivers it, that represents the greatest challenge. As long as economic uncertainty, unreasonable profit margins, staff cuts, and low wages mark the boundaries of journalism… well, you get what you pay for.
This is from a piece up on Columbia Journalism Review by newspaper veteran Jim Spencer from the Denver Post. You can read it all here. The italics are mine.
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