Newspapers are for sale across the country. National Public Radio and television news shows are laying off staff. The Tribune Co. (which owns the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers) is in bankruptcy. It’s clear that journalism is in crisis, and in the current recession, things probably will get much worse. That’s alarming. A robust media is vital to democracy. And while bloggers and other new-media news operations have enriched the public dialogue in important ways, their work still depends on the painstaking — and expensive — reporting supplied by traditional journalists. Some conclude from the recent dire reports about the news business that people are no longer interested in serious journalism. In fact, more people than ever are consuming news. The Los Angeles Times, for example, still has nearly 750,000 subscribers to its daily print edition — and it also attracts more than 9 million visitors to its web site each month.

What’s broken is the economic model. For decades, publishers and broadcasters operated as an indispensable source of news and advertising, with the advertisers paying most of the freight. Today, the Web gives advertisers more targeted and less expensive options. Subscriptions too are down, as readers who used to pay for newspapers and magazines increasingly access them online for free. As a result, journalism — like music, cinema and other creative industries — is confronted with the question: Who will pay for creating content?

Serious news coverage is costly. The New York Times reportedly spends more than $3 million a year to cover the Iraq war, for example. And the kind of investigative reporting that uncovers wrongdoing in government and business requires months-long commitments of reporters and editors. Yet as recent events demonstrate, we have a crucial need for independent reporting that gets to the bottom of what’s happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, in Israel and Gaza, in Washington, D.C., and on Wall Street.

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