I don’t know what is going to happen to great newspapers, which we need to guard us in a democracy unless they start changing their model and charging for online content. 

None other than the editor of The New Yorker magazine, David Remnick, recently suggested to me that journalists, columnists and editors need to get in an old jalopy together and go besiege Congress for a bailout. He also said, at the time, "You know, I read The New York Times and The Washington Post every single morning online and I am trying to figure out what’s in that process for these newspapers."

So to get some kind of profit for newspapers in this current Internet situation, I don’t see how the best of them can avoid beginning to charge for their hard work instead of giving it away free. Advertising on the Internet works well for some things being sold, but not enough to sustain newspapers. For some reason or other, a lot of people believe that news-gathering is free; relishing it – their right; and how the newspaper sustains itself is of no concern.

This situation cannot endure.

Click here on this text to read my New York Post column.