One of my first editors would visibly recoil when the newspaper's ad manager occasionally ventured into the newsroom.
"Here they come. Here come the ad goons," the white-haired newsman would growl, before bellowing at the offender (in more florid language than this paper allows): "Stay the heck out of our side of the building, will ya?"
Man, did we love that.
The old Irishman lacked subtlety. But he made us feel the news wouldn't be subjected to undue influence from anyone, including those trying to make the paper a buck.
In that earlier epoch newspapers were fat, virtually monopolizing local and classified advertising. Now newspaper people track their falling fortunes daily and talk about "monetizing content" on the Web.
The debate has gotten tiresome and dispiriting. It's gotten so bad, reporter Brenda Starr, a comic creation, is getting furloughed. Portland news-folk applauded the boss the other day for merely announcing: "We do intend to keep publishing the Oregonian."
The recession has turned a painful evolution into life-threatening revolution.
What's most difficult for old-schoolers to accept, Internet strategist Clay Shirky noted in a recent essay, is that "the old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place."
When we insist on knowing the new media models before the old ones crumble, Shirky wrote, we are "demanding to be lied to."
So I'm embracing uncertainty. Both because what Shirky said makes sense and because a recent flurry of proposals -- which tend toward begging for charity or forcing users to pay for Web content -- have limited potential.
Former Time managing editor Walter Isaacson kicked off a wave of soul-searching about funding the newspaper business last month with his story on the magazine cover. It called on newspapers to charge readers via iTunes-style "micro-payments" for their information online.
Similar proposals followed, most saying the audience could pay through user-friendly one-click debits or cable television-style subscriptions.
But pay-to-view models are leaning into a strong, strong wind for free Internet content. Most newspapers that charged for online content, including this one and the New York Times, dropped the experiment.
I'd argue as furiously as anyone that newspapers routinely deliver the bulk of the compelling, and accurate, information in marketplace.
