• WSJ (paid subscription required), Wednesday, March 15, 2006 11:17 AM

Against the backdrop of the apparent sale of Knight Ridder to the McClatchy Company, TheWall Street Journal has run a Review & Outlook commentary on the state of the newspaper business.  The Journal's point is that papers are in jeopardy, but they are worth saving because what they do best--gather and report news under the supervision of trained journalists--is a valuable service, not duplicated by any other medium. "News outlets have not always helped their case for the value of what they produce," says The Journal. "News gathering can be expensive when done right, and giving away something that costs serious money to produce is not usually a great way to ensure either profitability or value-preservation. But that again is a problem of finding the appropriate distribution model in a new medium, which is separate from the question of whether newspapers today offer anything of value to their readers.  That value proposition--journalistic standards and editorial judgment--has arguably become more important than ever in a digital age."  The fact that Knight Ridder was not overrun by bidders --in fact, reports say there was only one--does not alter the main points made by The Journal.

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