Who will pay for watchdog journalism?

[But] the most serious competitive threat to traditional journalism doesn't come from bloggers and their compatriots. It comes instead from businesses that are also using technology's power. They're winning advertising, the other kind of "content" that appears in print publications and broadcasts....

What if we're in for a decade or two of decline in the watchdog journalism that takes deep pockets and a civic commitment to produce?....

Sound journalism is a foundation of an informed citizenry in self-governing nations. These economic trends suggest serious problems for the organizations that have used the manufacturing model of media - with attendant barriers to entry that made it so profitable for more than a half-century - in part as a way of supporting high-quality journalism....

Many classified adverts are moving to the net So I worry. What if we can't come up with useful journalism business models in the near term to replace the eroding ones? What if we're in for a decade or two of decline in the watchdog journalism that takes deep pockets and a civic commitment to produce?

-- excerpted from a BBC News column by Dan Gillmor. He is author of We the Media, a book about technology and the development of grassroots journalism. He is also director of the Center for Citizen Media.