Most of what is  being written at the Buzzmachine post is that the old media does not understand what the web is about. However, I was struck by this comment from John Duncan:

It is too early to say things like “this is what the web is about”. The ecosystem of the web is complicated and interdependent and if the ability to profit from an investment in generating original content disappears and a sub-species of news producers (albeit slightly dodo-ish) disappears, it is hard to tell whether that ultimately benefits users or not.

The principle that, if you spend money or effort generating content, you should enjoy exclusive rights to exploit that content for a period of time, exists to protect creativity not diminish it. And that principle is being violated by some of the more content rich aggregator sites.

Up to now the profits of print have subsidised news organizations online and allowed them to not worry too much about aggregation sites and what they do. It looked as if there would be enough pie for everyone, but it’s become obvious at last to newspapers that online revenue will not fund their journalism and that they have to start being more aggressive and smart online if they really don’t believe in print any more.

We are probably now entering the post-print era of online news. It’s not going to have the same ecosystem as the print era of online news. The content food chain that starts with professional media organizations is going to change. It is wrong therefore to assume that what works for everyone’s benefit now will necessarily work forever. Things change.

The Journalism that Matters (JTM) series of summits has been moving towards trying to understand this new news ecosystem for some time. This upcoming JTM event addresses the issue head-on:   “Adapting Journalism to the New News Ecology,” a three-day conference in St. Petersburg, Fla., to be held March 1-4, 2009. The cost of the event $350 is further testament that fewer things will be free.

Full disclosure: I have been an advisor to past JTM events, but have not been involved much in this one.

Also earlier in the day, MPR loaned Journalism That Matters a studio on Friday morning, June 6, to tape: “The Passion of Place.” That’s also a illuminating look at what motives local online news / community entrepreneurs — in the voices of 10 of our fellow New Pamphleteers participants. You can launch the audio from here.

Here is what host Bill Densmore of the Media Giraffe Project writes:

What motivates people to launch a local online news community — a “placeblog” and what are their challenges, their successes, the opportunities, vision and passion which accompany this work? Twelve citizen-journalists — “placebloggers” — gathered on Friday, June 6, 2008, for a one-hour conversation at Minnesota Public Radio. Listen to the auto stream of their conversation here. Or download an MP3 podcast for offline listening. Moderated by Bill Densmore, director of the Media Giraffe Project at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Then on Monday, the New York Times  reported on how Sam Zell was about to cut “500 pages of news each week from the company’s dozen papers, including The Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times. ”

The story added:

The one thing everyone seems to agree on is this: Newspapers around the United States have tried a lot of approaches, newsy to fluffy, parochial to international, voluminous to sparse — and all are in trouble.

Moyers referenced all this in his speech. Of course, we have been chronicling it here for months and months. I am worried as is everyone that quality journalism might disappear, but in the last week I have been to both  the Media Reform conference  and the Journalism that Matters conference which preceded it. At both there were dozens, maybe hundreds of people trying to reinvent journalism, to preserve its best qualities. To tell truth to power.

To me it is the American Dream at work. Each of us has the power to participate in the Democracy and to work to save it, despite all the forces that want to consolidate power into the hands of the few. Each day we have to stand up to them and look for ways keep the spirit and reality of journalism alive. But listen to Bill Moyers he says it better than I. It is truly a great speech.

One final note think of people like Sam Zell and people like Bill Moyers. Which of the two would you want in charge of your most precious democratic institutions? We have to take action now.

Update: June 5, 2008: I did a separate blog on this, after talking with Joel Kramer:

Yesterday I blogged that Joel Kramer, MinnPost publisher, spoke in a broad sense about the grim outlook for news business models. He said that’s not what he meant — if that’s how it was interpreted. Here is the message he wants conveyed:

I did not intend to say that the MinnPost business model is grim. I believe that the for-profit model for high quality regional journalism is grim. That’s why MinnPost has adopted a not-for-profit model — about which I am very optimistic.  

Her team’s research just looks at 15 sites and is, as she says, still very limited and preliminary.  

You can find out more half way down this page at the State of the News Media 2008 site.

Here is more about the conference:

One of the first national gatherings for local, online citizen journalists and entrepreneurs, sometimes called “placebloggers.” Designed for existing and prospective journalists and entrepreneurs. Including workshops on the legal, business, journalistic, marketing, advertising and social aspects of starting and running a local online news and commerce community. Timed and located to coincide with the National Conference on Media Reform.