Marcelo Somers just wrote what may be the most intelligent piece I’ve read all month regarding passionate independent writers, large news conglomerations, and the issue of passion and monetizing content.
Big publishers have had their blinders on so narrowly that they only have seen the internet and mobile devices as a new publishing medium, not a new business model.
And:
To be successful, people have to want to read what you write. Pure news is a commodity, I don’t care if I get it from The Daily, The New York Times, or Engadget, but it has to be great because it’s so easy to access anything. It’s hard to be great. It takes time to be great. But it doesn’t take a staff of hundreds to be great. People like Murdoch’s argument is that it takes hundreds of people to be great. He is wrong. It takes passion.