I keep being forwarded this article about the rising trend of non-profit news gathering. It's not the first time I've heard of this phenomenon, but it's an interesting read:

As America’s newspapers shrink and shed staff, and broadcast news outlets sink in the ratings, a new kind of Web-based news operation has arisen in several cities...

Their news coverage and hard-digging investigative reporting stand out in an Internet landscape long dominated by partisan commentary, gossip, vitriol and citizen journalism posted by unpaid amateurs.

The fledgling movement has reached a sufficient critical mass, its founders think, so they plan to form an association, angling for national advertising and foundation grants that they could not compete for singly. And hardly a week goes by without a call from journalists around the country seeking advice about starting their own online news outlets.

Here in Seattle, Crosscut is considering going non-profit (as opposed to non-profitable, which I hear is its current situation). Whether or not that publication makes it work as a non-profit, it does seem, with all the layoffs and departures at the Seattle Times, and all the assorted people I know who have bailed out of for-profit print jobs because of the grim trend-lines, that some sort of non-profit news publication could easily crop up in our city.

Which points at yet another bind that for-profit newspapers are in these days.

They can't make enough money via online advertising to make up for the revenue they're losing as their print readers and print advertisers disappear. So they start laying off writers to cut costs. But, when they do this, they create a pool of unemployed, trained writers who, because of the low barriers to entry into the online information market, can potentially band together and compete with their former employers as a .org.

Just another irony for a very troubled industry.