A convenient axiom of digital journalism is that speed and technology form a tension with quality.
The Audit, the business-related blog of the Columbia Journalism Review, examines this tension a new light with the recent effort by the Journal Register Company to reset its business model through a second wave of Chapter 11 proceedings and the New York Times and others to find a viable economic underpinning through an online paywall.
Dean Starkman raises interesting questions about the strategy in some quarters to declare there is no inherent value in journalism (thus it must be free) and in other quarters to declare that there is significant value therein and a necessary barrier must be instilled. Ultimately these strategies are bet-the-bank initiatives with only one winner.
The Audit, the business-related blog of the Columbia Journalism Review, examines this tension a new light with the recent effort by the Journal Register Company to reset its business model through a second wave of Chapter 11 proceedings and the New York Times and others to find a viable economic underpinning through an online paywall.
Dean Starkman raises interesting questions about the strategy in some quarters to declare there is no inherent value in journalism (thus it must be free) and in other quarters to declare that there is significant value therein and a necessary barrier must be instilled. Ultimately these strategies are bet-the-bank initiatives with only one winner.
