An Alternative Model   

Lori Robertson's informative article "Adding a Price Tag" (December 2005/January 2006) completely left out an important alternative model for funding newspapers that the Internet makes possible. All media, including newspapers, do not tell us enough of what we need to know about our world. The Internet, blamed for print journalism's problems, offers a solution for the financing of original hard news reporting, if no complete solution for the widespread distribution of such reporting. Without the expense of printing, distributing, designing and selling ads, a nonprofit newspaper reporting in the public interest could survive on reader donations.

The essential example of this model is a free online newspaper, the NewStandard, which publishes original hard news from a progressive standpoint at newstandardnews.net. Though the NewStandard produces quality journalism five days a week and has for close to two years, this crucial project is still frighteningly unknown to many people in the media criticism communities.

Benjamin Melançon
Natick, Massachusetts