Are newspaper paywalls a corporate recognition that the end is near?

If you aren’t concerned, you should be
The debate about paywalls continues as more and more newspapers gravitate toward requiring online subscriptions to their websites. For me, the debate grows more fascinating at each turn, and in the past several weeks, I have come across some interesting reading material related to the debate, whether directly or indirectly.

Labor law protections diminishing

Increasing use of freelancers aids business more than workers

(Image by Stock.xchng vi)

When news came out Monday that the Tribune was laying off a score of its suburban TribLocal reporters and editors in favor of outsourcing the work to another company, it caught me unawares and left me disappointed, but it failed to shock me.

In this case, no news is still bad news for newspapers

This week, what most of the journalist world already knew was coming, and what many print journalists dreaded, arrived with little fanfare although perhaps to some it sounds a lot like that other shoe everybody's always saying is going to fall.

More people in 2010 said they got their news online rather than from newspapers. And, also last year, more advertising dollars went to the Internet than to newspapers, a clear reminder that if the industry does not hurry and catch up on the new business model it should have started shaping 10 years ago, it will go the way of the dodo bird.

That might not be a bad thing. Journalists will still be out there but will have to find other ways of plying their trade if their employers are not.