At least that's what Topix.net co-founder Rich Skrenta suggested on the Media 2.0 panel this morning at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. He said that print advertising subsidizes every professional journalist in media companies now and as revenues continue to decline there, journalists will lose their jobs. It's a familiar scneario but Skrenta doesn't think the evolution toward online news consumption is a replacement. "The Internet isn't replacing it, it's destroying it."

He said the problem is particularly acute for local reporters. In order to reach a local audience, newsmakers such as those running for local office will have to stand outside Starbucks and pass out fliers because there will be no other way to reach their constituency. He acknowledged the existence of other news outlets such as blogging or Twitter, but didn't think that was the answer. Topix, which offers an easy way to search local news by zip code, recently shifted over to human edited channels away from algorithmic-based editing. If early results are any indication, that approach isn't the answer either.

PersonalBee founder and Technorati's newest employee Ted Shelton suggested that journalism will become mostly a free activity conducted by non-professionals who just love to write about something they are passionate about. Media companies, according to his vision, will simply aggregate all that content and profit from it.

I don't have the answer but as was said by someone earlier on the panel, I don't think a blogger is going to call his local station station for the police blotter each week. I don't know what form it will take, but as long as the demand for professionally reported local news exists, writers will be compensated to produce it.

For more on the Web 2.0 Expo, see:
Conference livecast on the Web 2.0 Expo blog
Micro Persuasion

Tags: web2, web2expo, topix, technorati, vc, venture+capital