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I think it's really good that you have great competition among news networks, and for that matter all the networks in general. It's bringing more and more people in to watching the news.

I think the press has an interest in communicating to its viewers or readers, and their viewers or readers drive profit for those news organizations, so I think those news organizations have a certain bias toward their own readers. Yeah, I think they are a special interest. Of course they are.

Cable news is more titillating to talk about who's up and who's down and all that nonsense as opposed to what's actually done.

The democratic approach to news is a very valuable thing. We're always going to be dependent on the quality of reporting of mainstream media.

If money can't be made reporting and writing articles, then professionals simply can't do it anymore. Unless we adopt the position that the amateur blogosphere is really capable of taking on the role that the 'New York Times' and CNN play, then we do need solutions for paying for content.

Think of it: television producers joining with newspapers to tell stories. It's journalism of the future. Advertising will follow the crowd - the 'crowd' being viewers and readers, of course, which could bring revenue back into journalism.

Whether people care enough about local news to pay for it is, sadly, an entirely different question than whether our democracy requires a strong watchdog function at the local level to ensure safeguards against abuse, chicanery, and outright dishonesty.

The dilemma for early 21st century journalism is this: Who will pay for the news?

The current wisdom now is that if the three networks are covering the news the same way the difference is the anchor people. I think that won't be true in the future.