Online Public Relations Thoughts

Buzzfeed News is shutting down.  It couldn't turn a profit as an advertiser-supported medium, and it didn't want to go behind a paywall with subscribers.  That's a pity.  It is one more lost spot for journalism and one less target for media relations. It is also a proof that paywalls are necessary for the fiscal functioning of online media.  The contention that information is free on the web is false.  Someone has to pay for generation of content, and it is the consumer who reads it.  The time for experimentation is over.