Before newspapers held sway over politicians and maintained monopolies under federal anti-trust exemptions, they were a service people were willing to pay for, Michael Kinsley writes in the Washington Post. Even if “technology is on the verge of removing some traditionally vital organs of the body politic,” they will be replaced by what people want, and want to pay for. “If the New York Times disappears,” he says, “there will still be news.”
Ideas have been floated to save the industry, from government help to non-profit status. But “a newspaper industry that was a ward of the state or of high-minded foundations would be sadly compromised,” Kinsley writes. More people are reading news than ever, albeit online. “There is no reason to suppose that when the dust has settled, people will have lost their appetite for serious news when the only fundamental change is that producing and delivering that news has become cheaper.” (More newspaper industry stories.)
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