Jeff Jarvis has some ideas for fixing the Times (which is sinking fast), but I think he gets caught up in the romantic notion of what the Times "means":

The Times is indeed a national treasure and a national necessity. As local media become more local, we will have only The Times covering the nation and the world with the Washington Post covering the nation, mostly, and the Wall Street Journal vying to compete.

The major cable news networks all have large online presences, and pretty much cover the same ground. We don't "need" any specific entity: if a business fails, we have bankruptcy laws to handle that eventuality. IMNSHO, that applies equally to "banks too big to fail", "car companies too big to fail", and news outlets that are "national treasures".

No one has a god given right to cling to an outmoded business model. If those rules changed, then someone needs to call me - the high dollar Smalltalk consulting business from the mid 90's needs to be reinvigorated :)

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