NYT journalist Timothy Egan on what might be the end result of the decline and possible fall of serious newspapers in the United States. From the NYT's Outpost blog (July 2):

We could be left with a national snark brigade, sniping at the remaining dailies in their pajamas, never rubbing shoulders with a cop, a defense attorney or a distressed family in a Red Cross shelter after a flood.

My lament this Fourth of July is to ask readers to see newspapers as not just another casualty in the churn of business. Sure, reporters say stupid things and write idiotic stories. Everyone stumbles. But on its best days, a newspaper is a marvel of style and wit, of small-type discoveries and large-type overstatements, a diary of our deeds.

We may still prove Jefferson’s preference wrong: perhaps a nation can function without newspapers. But it would be a confederacy of dunces.

Egan noted that in the previous week, nearly 1,000 jobs had been lost from U.S. newspapers -- and that doesn't include the most recent cuts at the L.A. Times.

What he doesn't mention is how newspapers got addicted to relatively high operating profit margins, dating back to when they were virtual monopolies. The capital markets, which don't value social contributions at all, think that if newspapers are economically valueless if they can't deliver those same returns in this changed business environment (OTOH, those same markets put a US$15 billion value on Facebook).

To adapt, new business models are evolving -- some of which include having content contributors work for free. Egan noted that one of those online publications is the Huffington Post.

“Not our financial model,” as the co-founder, Ken Lerer famously said. From low pay to no pay — the New Journalism at a place that calls itself an Internet newspaper.

Yes, the Brentwood bold-face types who grace HuffPo’s home page can afford to work for free, but it’s un-American, to say the least.

Long ago, I was a member of the steelworkers union, and also a longshoreman. If any of those guys on the docks heard that I was now part of a profession that asked people to labor for nothing, they’d laugh in their lunch buckets — then probably shut The Huffington Post down. Doesn’t the “progressive” agenda, much touted on their pages, include a living wage?

Sometime in the late 1990s (if memory served me correctly, but keep in mind it sometimes doesn't), I believe I opined out loud in one online discussion forum that perhaps journalism would someday become an avocation. You would have your day job, and make your civic contribution by doing some free journalism on the side.

I hate it when I'm right. :^)

However, this new model won't produce much serious investigative reportage. You need skills and experience to do that type of heavy lifting. And it is a rare skill -- Out of the thousands that work as journalists in this country, a tiny fraction of those are people I would rank as bona fide investigative reporters (and if you're asking, I wouldn't count myself in that group).

That type of work takes money, time and resources. It's not just the reporting, it's the editing and legal back-up that's needed to ready such stories for publication.

But beyond the profit and the resources questions lies this key issue: What do the readers want?

When I hit the subway at 6 a.m., I'm often the only person reading a paid newspaper (however, if you get brekkie at McDonald's, you can get the Toronto Star for free).

People will most likely be seen mindlessly flipping through a copy of Metro, the commuter freebie, or some similar publication.

Quick, albiet disquieting, question: What should you do if you hope to produce great journalism that would inform readers about what you see as important matters, but they would rather skim six-paragraph stories about dieting or graze on photos of hot celebs?

Addendum

To partly answer the question above, I offer this from a May 16 Nation posting about Joshua Micah Marshall, founder of TalkingPointsMemo:

 When openings for entry-level jobs are posted at Marshall's site, for example, he said applications come in from senior investigate (sic) journalists struggling to find a job.

In-depth, investigative journalists: Who needs 'em? :(