Journalism’s other road

Buried in the despair of a U.S. media-industry roundup — to which it devotes an extraordinarily long and justifiably depressing introduction — the Columbia Journalism Review presents some interesting ideas about non-profit journalism. Excerpts:

“Never has there been a greater need for independent, original, credible information about our complex society and the world at large. Never has technology better enabled the instantaneous global transmission of pictures, sounds, and words to communicate such reporting. But all this is occurring in a time of absentee owners, harvested investments, hollowed-out newsrooms, and thus a diminished capacity to adequately find and tell the stories ….  at the moment, the landscape looks precarious, particularly for serious editors and reporters….”

“…other economic models that can produce substantive journalism suddenly look more interesting and relevant to a profession under siege. And while much has been written of late about the dire state of commercial journalism, very little has been said about various independent, noncommercial initiatives specifically designed to produce that kind of substance.”