"Here's a better question: Why are industry leaders still so obsessed with trivial paywall news, and so seemingly disinterested in everything else?" Because in the guide of preserving the newsroom they are actually trying to preserve the relevance of the knowledge they've accumulated about how to run a newspaper. The paywall stands the best chance of doing that, and so it is framed as the best chance of preserving the newsroom. The other possible courses of action have at least as good or a better chance of working but they all require industry leaders to acquire new knowledge. Or to put it another way: to lose mastery before they can gain a future. They're trying to avoid that. Paywalls whisper: you can!

With all due respect, most readers don't give a flying f--- about data. Oh, really?

Thanks, Dan. Tons to think about here. I need to do some more reading to understand it all. Two suggestions... Seventh W: "what's the background here?" Meaning" who, what, where, when, why, how and who cares are all necessary to understand a news story, but frequently the story as a whole isn't understandable without the context and background that make it news. More people might get what you are talking about if you used an existing journalistic product to illustrate. One I kept thinking about as I tried to "get" what this future system would look like is: http://www.crunchbase.com/ am I way off off here?