Bookraft

Here are two markers of the Economic Decline of Journalism.The first is from President Obama's remarks at the Washington Correspondent's Dinner this past weekend:

And the second is from Frank Rich's column in the NYTimes - where he has Journalism on Suicide Watch - implying some self-inflicted wounds :
The American Press on Suicide Watch

As a blog writer and reader I am part of the problem and victim too of it - The Commons and Free Resources are often mutually unsupportable. Many mechanisms for charging a small fee for services rendered have been proposed for the Web - none has been successful. And that is the other essence beyond Frank Rich's salient points for the Decline of Journalism. Eventually some mechanism is going to have to be found for charging for small services rendered over the Web. And advertising is not the model way to do this.

So expect to see a decline not just in Journalism but also in a broad range of "service" businesses from consulting thru higher education to many of the advisory professions. And remember there is a counter current that says all information should be free. This is one of the major disruptions of the Internet Age which has yet to work itself out.