New revenue model for newspapers

America's newspapers are struggling: Many are trying to offer 25-percent profits to shareholders while maintaining readership against the tide of the Internet. Pretty much everyone says this is impossible.

Fortunately, new revenue streams have been identified by newspapers in Communist China, of all places, The Associated Press reports. A reporter there was killed while trying to establish a protection racket:

SHANGHAI -- The savage beating death of a reporter has shone a rare light on the corrupt, money-driven underbelly of Chinese journalism, where many reporters take bribes to write good news and extort companies to suppress their dirty laundry.

President Hu Jintao has ordered a probe into the killing of China Trade News reporter Lan Chengzhang, who Chinese media say may have been trying to collect money from the owner of an illegal coal mine in return for not writing about the business.

Yeah, well, it didn't work out well for the media business in this instance, but the potential revenue is there. The story indicates Chinese reporters could be facing even more severe constraints than the American media.

Protection schemes were of course the realm of the American mafia in its earlier years, before it began moving into other industries. Were the American media to follow in the Mafia's footsteps, perhaps next it could improve capitalism in Cuba, found a money-making city in the desert, and even help rebuild decaying American cities through acquisitions in the sanitation and construction industries. To all this, they would owe entrepreneurial Chinese Communists. Just think of the future that could be built!