When printed newspapers continue their decline, reducing staff, who will pay for journalism that requires investment in time and knowledge? Investments that might only yield dividends after a period of time instead of instantly? Journalism that deals with difficult issues and requires specialized competence? Where it’s difficult to imagine bloggers and other citizens stepping in? Tim Porter commented on Yahoo’s announcement of its “SoJo” project. Here is an attempt at some more questions and answers in my local context – mostly questions, I’m afraid:

• New sources for funding: Foundations such as The Freedom of Expression Foundation in Oslo might increasingly fund projects and initiatives not relying on the “eyeballs for advertising” model. This particular foundation has already funded TV documentaries and has also taken ownership positions in the Norwegian press. Problem is, we should have more of them. In Sweden, a country with a stronger tradition for public benefit foundations, the Ax:son Johnson foundation funds the magazine Axess, where it’s possible to find in-depth analysis and reporting.
• News websites must prove themselves: The easiest solution would be the market mechanism. News on the web will inevitably grow as paper declines. But how will news websites develop? The Norwegian news sites now look strong on paper (!), with several of them turning good profits last year. So far, this hasn’t really been followed by rising journalistic ambitions (as noted before). Norwegian news websites prefer to invest in consumer-oriented journalism. So it’s an open question: When the websites feel they have the necessary financial stability, will they become more ambitious? Or just start subsidizing the declining paper version?
• How about institutional knowledge? It’s likely that we will see a fragmentation of the media business. If journalists eager to make a difference will have to hunt for new funding sources, and if website editors keep giving priority to the instant-click-gratification news production, what happens with the long-term building of knowledge inside a news institution? The human capital, in other words. If, say in the field of foreign news, a model of one or two commissioning editors and a lot of freelancers replaces 10 or 20 full-time reporters, will the quality suffer? The heretics would say no, it will be good to bring in more voices, and I would tend to agree with them. But…
• What about the really heavy assignments? Such as war reporting, or going to failed states and unstable areas. That requires special skills, and here is one area of journalism where the distinction between amateur and professional still makes very much sense. You do not want to send an eager, but unexperienced reporter into Iraq. A current example: Norway has military forces in Afghanistan, involved in both the ISAF force and in the US-led Enduring Freedom operations. We are getting almost no reporting on what these forces do, or about developments in Afghanistan generally. Who will ascertain that there even are reporters capable of going there, not to mention pay for them?