The Crisis in the content economy

Empathy for Newspapers

However, the declining cost of information also means that the tens of thousands of middle-class jobs the newspaper industry has shed are being replaced by tens of thousands of low-wage jobs in a new digital sweatshop. Information production is becoming a less viable way of making a living, and the lowered cost of information on the Internet is directly responsible for this severe wage reduction.

Or as Clay Shirky put it, "Society doesn’t need newspapers. What we need is journalism." (Actually I think we need newspapers, although not necessarily in broad sheet form.) See my earlier piece, Content is not King.

Edit - Rob Pegoraro has some additional thoughts.

Publishing 2.0: How Google Stole Control Over Content Distribution By Stealing Links