Why journalists deserve low pay | csmonitor.com
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0519/p09s02-coop.html

Actually, journalists deserve low pay. Wages are compensation for value creation. And journalists simply aren't creating much value these days. Until they come to grips with that issue, no amount of blogging, twittering, or micropayments is going to solve their failing business models.

The demise of the news business can be halted, but only if journalists commit to creating real value for consumers and become more involved in setting the course of their companies.

ervices that readers, listeners, and viewers cannot receive elsewhere. And these must provide sufficient value so audience

'A century and half ago, journalists were much closer to the market and more clearly understood they were sellers of labor in the market. Before professionalism of journalism, many journalists not only wrote the news, but went to the streets to distribute and sell it and few journalists had regular employment in the news and information business. Journalists and social observers debated whether practicing journalism for a news entity was desirable. Even Karl Marx argued that "The first freedom of the press consists in it not being a trade."'

Not sure I entirely agree with the sentiment expressed here, but it's interesting.

"…value is being severely challenged by technology that is "de-skilling" journalists. It is providing individuals – without the support of a journalistic enterprise – the capabilities to access sources, to search through information and determine its significance, and to convey it effectively."

Journalists like to think of their work in moral or even sacred terms. With each new layoff or paper closing, they tell themselves that no business model could adequately compensate the holy work of enriching democratic society, speaking truth to power, and comforting the afflicted.

Actually, journalists deserve low pay. Wages are compensation for value creation. And journalists simply aren't creating much value these days.