He says, "The real question is for the public, not journalists: Does it want to pony up for news, whatever the media that prevail? It’s all a matter of priorities. Not long ago, we laughed at the idea of pay TV. Free television was considered an inalienable American right (as long as it was paid for by advertisers). Then cable and satellite became the national standard."

What Rich isn't getting is that news is information -- not entertainment. It doesn't depend on special effects or surround sound. If all the major tv and print news media suddenly followed the Wall Street Journal and went print-only, there would still be people who'd instantly copy stories onto blogs and message boards. There'd be people who would more legitimately post brief quotes and summaries at places like DU. And the Net being what it is, within an hour the stories would be everywhere -- which isn't much inducement for the public in general to pay for the originals.

That's not even mentioning all the local newspapers and such that pay for wire service stories and freely post them online. For Rich's idea to work would mean placing a kind of lockdown on *all* news sources, from the New York Times down to the Podunk Gazette, and establishing an RIAA-style crusade to track down, fine, and even jail illegal reprinters. Oh -- and you'd also have to keep Americans from accessing any foreign news sources. Lots of luck with that.

Rich's basic error is that once a story is online in *any* form, it's too late to stop it from getting out -- and thus too late to try to force readers to pay for it. On the other hand, it's also clear that advertising is no longer going to be able to subsidize the news the way it once did -- and government subsidies are also a non-starter.

I feel really stupid saying this, but the most plausible answer I can see is for news gathering to become even *more* politicized and partisan than it has been. One thing we know people are willing to pay for is to get their own political positions more widely disseminated. So what the hell -- why not go all the way and have the 527's and think-tanks do the heavy lifting? Add in an array of bloggers with well-honed skills at detecting bullshit and propaganda to act as middlemen. And then turn the whole thing loose on the Net and let the chips fall as they may.

Traditional reporters who have been raised on a credo of objectivity won't approve of it -- but it's not as if most of them have ever really been objective themselves. And it might actually be the best long-term solution.