Even at the Washington Post (profitable now), what drove growth was their opinion pieces (which they're doubling down on). And opinion pieces, while having their own merit, is rarely journalism. It makes me sad.

In order to provide value, newspapers need to provide exclusive value-add, which in many cases includes opinion pieces. Opinion pieces allow experts in the area to link many different news items together to provide a more holistic view of the news item.

Anyone can tell me that 5 Coalition soldiers were killed by an IED, but it takes an opinion piece by an expert in counter insurgency tactics to provide context about how that might represent a shift in tactics/approach by a group.

For news firms seeking survival or sustainable operations, you'll see your "value add" opinion pieces consume more of the content with less actual news. This is WaPo's strategy [0].

[0] http://digiday.com/publishers/washington-post-grew-digital-s...

I think there's some truth to this. I think there's also a need for accreditation or other validation/reputation services, not to serve as a gatekeeper, but to assist in helping people determine which sources are likely worthwhile to listen to. If the vetting needs to be done for each person on a per-author basis, that can be overwhelming, not dissimilar to the paradox of choice.

In some ways this may end up looking similar to existing publishers, though with a little less tight-coupling between author and publisher. It's pretty clear there are large changes underway.

Though I believe they are actually profitable.