Insightful piece advocating 'Napsterized news'

Bob Benz and Mike Phillips from Scripps have written an insightful proposal for creating a new news cooperative in the wake of the Associated Press' decision to charge clients an additional fee for publishing AP content on their websites.

Even more interesting than their proposal, IMHO, is their analysis of current trends in the news business, which contains this point:

As content loses value, expert editing and customer-driven bundling are becoming the tools for building audience. And audience -- not content -- is the news industry’s value proposition.

I've been telling my students all semester that synthesis, filtering, and context are the keys to a journalist's success in the new news environment. Glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks so.