Time will tell …

… Will More Newspapers Follow the Philadelphia Inquirer and Become Nonprofits? - The Atlantic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Well, most newspapers just look to other news sources to find out what's going on. Local, local, local is the mantra these days, but one doesn't get the sense that the people in charge go out very much. One is reminded of lines from Yeats's "The Scholars": "All think what other people think;/All know the man their neighbor knows." Philadelphia has a lively poetry community, and an equally lively bunch of pool teams hoping to make it to competitions in Vegas. Don't hear much about either in the media. Most people are not policy wonks. What they want to know about government programs is whether they work and how much they'll cost. Newspapers have to figure out how to serve the citizens, not the agencies, and give the people what they need to know and might like to know.