How does a business model premised on abundance rather than
scarcity look? Will the budding journalistic entrepreneurs end up freely adding
to the trove of abundance subtly yet indelibly points to selective scarcity, or
will the sea of free abundance dry up once the economic need for a viable
revenue stream finally calls in the loan? If only we had infallible crystal
balls capable of showing us the future. Rather than staring into the
still-foggy abyss, let’s try breaking off pieces of the mammoth digital-media
revolution that can be answered. In this
essay, I tackle the question of whether the expansion of online journalism has
been primarily chasing the open-ended promise of the burgeoning technology, or pushing
away from increasingly decadence in the traditional media. In investigating
this question, I do not mean to imply a direct relation to the broader
question. Putting GlobalPost under
the microscope, I contend that shortcomings increasingly evident in the
traditional media have been giving the online revolution a “shot in the arm” in
the form of a transfer of talent.
The full essay is in Cases of Unethical Business: A Malignant Mentality of Mendacity, available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.