“the prospects are pretty grim for news organizations to convince consumers to pay for something that they now get for free”

Yes, welcome to the world musicians have been inhabiting since Napster. Once you make it ‘free’ (or elected not to prosecute people who steal), it’s kind of hard to get someone to pay for it. But let’s take the pirate apologist approach and suggest that if they just let them have some free content, they’ll see how great it is and gladly pay for something more.

Not. Fail.

Now, I personally can see an out for online news sources and that’s iPad/iTunes style solution where instead of buying singles, your buying dailies.