Read this the other day, and I tend to enjoy Shirky's thinking about the future of news. Not because he's optimistic, certainly, but because he's sensible rather than emotional about it. In this CJR piece, he visualizes the news media business model as a triangle of producers (the news businesses themselves), audiences and advertisers. Each wants a connection to the other two, and all three legs of the triangle need to stand up in order for the model to work at all. And now that at least two of the legs are weakened, if not failing altogether, he suggests that there are only three paths forward: disappear entirely because the model is broken; shrink significantly to survive on the limited revenues; or restructure using a different business model. I think we all hope for the restructuring option.
But it doesn't appear that many people have good ideas about what a new business model for news should look like. I'm hoping something to discuss in class will help me to think of some suggestions.
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