These are people who understand paying for value.
We used to do it before the internet and digital news sites came along. Stories that take blood, sweat and tears shouldn't be given away for free.
On the question of a single, larger news entity, and what that means for journalism: It is certainly true that in the spirit of competition, journalists like to get scoops and exclusives, because that makes one newspaper more attractive than the other.
If you do that enough, advertisers want to be in your publication over another one.
But we still face heavy competition; small online news sites, blogs, BuzzFeed and social media -- indeed, the culture of journalism has never faced more competition.
So, to compete against this movement, traditional journalism has to be good. It has to have the ethics and standards that only trained journalists can provide; concepts lacking in social media and blogs.
If we want to survive, people have to turn to news sites, not the public arena, for information, and that's only possible if the job is done right.
A larger entity with New Zealand-wide resources will make possible certain avenues that did not exist before.
Both sides bring their contacts, their geography, their talents and their technology.
But there's something far simpler involved here.
Every journalist worth their salt genuinely want to bring you the news. They want their bylines on a top story.
That will never change. And now, with a possible merger, the ability to do that will be much, much greater.
