[travisgriggs]

To be honest, I don’t know.

I’m not looking for “free as in beer” press. Journalism takes effort that is real and should be remunerated. Without that, all you get is people who have an incentive to broadcast their version of the truth based on some other feedback that usually boils down to propaganda/proselyting/evangelism.

What I’m looking for is to have the profit motive detached from the news. I was intrigued when Jon Huntsman bought the Salt Like Tribune and changed it to a non profit organization a couple of years ago. I’m not a regular reader of the Trib, since I live up in Washington state these days, so I don’t know if it’s made a real difference. I read the occasional article from it, and it seems less click baity and sensationalistic, but I couldn’t say that with any depth.

But I do think there is an irreconcilable conflict of interest when you want to publicize information AND make a profit from it. It’s been there for a long time, but the precision of analytics feedback has moved that conflict up a whole notch in the digital age.