[MGP-Forum Announce] Is it better to build, not buy, metro news organization?

[Jeff Jarvis]

I disagree strongly. As Alan Rusbridger -- the editor of the Guardian, a 
paper supported by a foundation -- points out often: It was advertising 
that spared journalism from continuing to be the product and property of 
political entities. Journalism can and should be supported by the 
marketplace so it can prosper. Not all will be. But if we give that up, 
we will get less journalism, far less. And that will be bad for an 
informed society. I'm for both.

steve at coanews.org wrote:
> Jeff, thanks for pointing out the article.  However, my worry is not 
> that for-profit interactive media can't be successful (I think they 
> can), but rather that our platforms for citizen journalism SHOULD not be 
> operated for profit.  I generally do not think a corporate for profit 
> ownership is a good model for any type of journalism. It creates to many 
> conflicts of interests and structural biases.
> 
> As you might be able to tell, I'm a big advocate of non-profit online 
> participatory journalism.
> 
> Steve
> 
> Quoting Jeff Jarvis <jeffjarvis at gmail.com>:
> 
>> Allow me to point you to a story I wrote about a net-only newspaper in
>> Germany, Netzeitung, that is profitable.
>> http://www.buzzmachine.com/index.php/netzeitung/
>>
>> On 10/27/06, steve at coanews.org <steve at coanews.org> wrote:
>>> I think building new community news organizations is usually the way
>>> to go, but it
>>> depends on the situation.  But I think it is important that they be 
>>>  non-profit
>>> incorporated, as we have seen what has happened to for-profit
>>> alternative daily
>>> newspapers - they have been bought up by one corporation, and in many
>>> cases that
>>> corporation has removed the unprofitable local content that was once
>>> available.
>>>
>>> Being non-profit also means that one person or group of people won't
>>> be creating a
>>> community website in order to create a golden egg for later in life =
>>> selling out when
>>> the time is right.
>>>
>>> Sustainable long term community media should be non-profit and 
>>> independent.
>>>
>>> -I do still respect community media projects that are for-profit (I
>>> think coastsider.com
>>> falls in this category), but I do not think it is the long term
>>> solution to our
>>> privatized media system.
>>>
>>> Just my two cents,
>>> Steve
>>>
>>> Quoting Bill Densmore <densmore at densmoreassociates.com>:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Doing some catching up, we just came across MGP2006 alum Barry
>>>> Parr's Oct. 12, 2006, blog posting about the future of the Los
>>>> Angeles times. Parr, the Jupiter Research analyst who also is a
>>>> pioneer local online news community operator with Coastsider.com,
>>>> suggests it is now better to build, not buy, a metropolitan news
>>>> organization. Is he right?
>>>>
>>>> See:
>>>>
>>> http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/analysts/parr/archives/2006/10/dismantling_the.html 
>>>
>>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>>
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> 
> 
>