Author: dthurton

Forget about paying $1.50 for tommorow’s daily print edition. Instead get ready to fork over that same change for the newspaper’s web page or mobile web application.

A panel of young journalists answering the question of what’s next for news, said readers would start buying online content they usually viewed for free.

CBCNews.ca Executive Producer Mary Sheppard moderated the five member panel, which, said print readers already pay for subscriptions, so, why wouldn’t they pay to get news, sports and other stories that interest them online.

These thoughts come as declining newspaper add revenues and fewer subscribers have left many people wondering how newspapers will earn money tomorrow.

Answering this question further, the panel said a multi-prong approach of pay walls, that require users to pay for content, traditional advertising, online subscribers and donations are some ways.

As media’s shifting tectonic plates continue to shake traditional models and redefine the newsscape, the panel also said the traditional role of journalists maybe changing as well.

Expressing this point Romina Maurino of the Canadian Press, said politicians where bypassing journalists for webcasting their messages and events live, as city news bureaus shrink or disappear.

“People who we’re trying to hold accountable think we’re irrelevant. Because they know where under fire. And because of that they get away with more things,” said Maurino.

What is journalism? For some panelists at Tuesday’s Local TV Under Seige discussion, journalism is a business.

Face it, said both Sophia Hadzipetros and Mike Katrycz, to the audience of  journalists and professors and students of the profession in a Ryerson Journalism School lecture theatre, journalism is a business.

Both speakers formed a panel of journalists and editors who discussed the fate of local Toronto TV Stations that were struggling to stay on air in these economic times.

Katrycz, is the news director at CHCH Hamilton, which almost closed this year before Channel Zero agreed to buy the station from Canwest Global Communications. Hadzipetros is the Managing Editor at CBC Toronto.

Following these comments, Adrian Bateman of CTV Windsor said news wasn’t a business but a public service.

Bateman, the Managing Editor at the station, said his news department enjoyed good ratings because of their commitment to basic principles of journalism.

However, Bateman did acknowledge that profits were certainly a requirement for journalism that couldn’t be neglected.

Despite, the news department’s success, CTV Windsor almost closed this summer, before the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission invested more than $100 million into local television for 2009.

It’s unclear what will happen to CTV Windsor and other dependent stations when the money finishes.