California Insider Moves On

Last week some of the local bloggers seemed to take offense at Times- Standard editor, Rich Somerville's, opinion piece where he suggested at least some blogs don't provide inaccurate information. Some bloggers, in return, were predicting the demise of the print media as a result of what they see as biased news reporting.

I think there may be some truth to that but, bottom line as I see it, is that bloggers generally get fodder for their commentary from the mainstream news media, whether it be hard copy, television or internet. In most cases that will involve paid journalists. To suggest that paid journalism and newspapers in general are headed to oblivion, I'd be careful in doing.

Some certainly like to think that internet based news will eventually lead to the end of the hard copy version, but how will they make enough money to pay the reporters that provide the news?

Most newspapers seem to be providing some sort of web site to view their material on nowadays, but could web based news ever replace the hard copy's revenue of paid advertisements- which I understand is the main source of revenue for newspapers? I don't know.

Nonetheless, some news groups and commentators are exploring the use of paid subscription based web sites, The Wall Street Journal being one that at least requires a subscription to access some of their sections and there's more joining the paid web site club everyday.

I just noticed the Sacramento Bee's, Dan Weintraub, is moving his California Insider blog to a paid subscription site- the Sacramento Bee's Capitol Alert. Bummer. I always look forward to seeing what he comes up with each day.

So should I go along and pay for a subscription to that site? After all, if these guy's don't make money, who's going to provide our news?

I guess not. The $499 a year subscription rate is a bit much for this bloggers pocketbook. I can only hope the Sacramento Bee and other newspapers continue to make enough money to provide the news the way I'm getting it now.