Who will pay? Well, who stands to benefit? It is us, as citizens, that benefit most from an intelligent and free press. How to make that work feels challenging to me, but in the end, it feels like the right way to go to get media that citizens can believe in.

I think user comments are a critical part of the response to corporate advertising going forward. I don’t think anyone could compel corporate issue advertisers to enable a comment feature, certainly not after the Roberts Court took a chainsaw to restrictions on corporate advertising.

My hope is that by performing the under-appreciated journalistic function of aggregating and curating information about special interest advertising that we might create some incentives for corporate advertisers to make their case in a more straightforward, interactive fashion.

Regarding the Fairness Doctrine, my belief is that it was more effective at preventing discussion of controversial issues in the first place than it ever was at creating “fair, balanced, and equitable” treatment. But in any case, although I’m not an attorney, I have to belief yesterday’s court decision drove a stake through any hope of resurrecting the Fairness Doctrine for broadcasting or any other communication channel.

So we come finally to whether or not any kind of forum or vehicle with a built-in response and comment mechanism would ever be made attractive enough to capture some of the money now flooding into direct mail, 30-second attack ads, push polling, fake grassroots, and other tools of corporate advocacy.

I’m prepared to argue to corporate advertisers that in this inter-connected, overloaded information environment, even the most powerful corporate campaign can expect to be cross-linked, critiqued, parodied, or countered almost instantly and it would enhance the credibility of any corporate message for it to be presented in a setting where it could deal head on with opposing arguments.

But that argument may not fly. It may not be possible to capture a portion of the flood of corporate advocacy to support traditional, independent journalism. But we’ll never know until we try . . . and I’ll keep you posted if any such experiment gets off the ground.