Newspapers continue their march to non-profit and extension-of-J-schools status: the Philadelphia Inquirer just announced that it can't afford to pay its interns. So just offer unpaid slave-internships, right? Wrong—those pesky unions (bless them) don't allow people to work for free, in the grand media tradition. Whatever will they do? "The Inquirer now is asking journalism schools to pay the newspaper a stipend to support the internships. Each school that agrees to do so will have one guaranteed internship."

"[UNC's J-School] has at least 200 students interning every summer. There is no way the School can fund those–nor should internships be funded by university journalism programs." [UNC]

Is the goal of the newspaper industry to end up as non-profits—-sustained by donations, rich billionaires, and free labor? If so, their terrible financial state ensure that they're well on their way.