Helping journalism to pay its own way

I just completed a mind-expanding week at the Knight Center for Digital Media in Berkeley and was exposed to five programs — Photoshop, FinalCut Pro, GarageBand, Soundslides and Flash — along with 19 other journalists and I only want to quarrel with one point I heard during six long days of training: I think journalists have to invent ethical new ways to make money from their work. A remark to the contrary at the end of the session reminded me how profound a cultural revolution journalism will have to experience to re-establish its support system. Professional journalists have eschewed money-making. Someone else did that; it was up to ad sales or classifieds or circulation. But those systems are eroding. If journalists don’t re-invent ways to get paid for their services they are doomed to extinction. So it seems to me.