Newspapers may finally be waking up to the fact that if they give away their news for free online, people will stop paying for it in print. While the Wall Street Journal gets attention for the success of its long-standing paywall for its website, and the New York Times gets attention for planning to do so next January, a report by Nat Ives in Ad Age notes that many smaller papers in America are trying it, too, and at least gaining modest financial success.

Among the examples he cites are the El Dorado News-Times in Arkansas and the Norwalk Reflector in Ohio.

Ives says online paywalls "can help with print circulation, in particular, which is the venue for print ad revenue, still the most important revenue source for papers. And they can wring small but growing circulation revenue from the web."

I believe this is vital for the future of journalism in this country ... and I expound on this theme in a guest column in Forbes ... and you can read it for free because Forbes doesn't charge for online ... yet.

On the Media Game blog is written by Gerry Storch.

Vince Kern, senior director of Technology/Innovation for the Detroit Media Partnership, believes that the biggest obstacle facing digital readers is consumers' mindset. He states, "Smart publishers will reinvest a good portion of that divestment into resources to provide even more trusted and desired content consumers are demanding." However, he wonders whether consumers are prepared to pay for content?

Read the Vince Kern Interview

Jake Wengroff, global director of corporate communications at Frost & Sullivan, discusses the advantages and disadvantages of social media, such as Facebook, Twitter and Linked In, in journalism. Wengroff talks about freelance and contract journalists and says that online video is currently more popular than ever because of the decrease in the cost of equipment such as the Flip camera.

Read the Jake Wengroff Interview

Andy Petroski, director and assistant professor of learning technologies at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, discusses the impact of e-readers, such as the iPad and Kindle, on the newspaper and print industry. He talks about the benefits and drawbacks of the technology and says we are currently at the beginning stages of the digital transition.

Read the Andy Petroski Interview

Amy Vernon, professional journalist, digital journalist and top female Digger of all time, talks about the future of journalism and what the future journalist will look like. She describes the transitions and changes in the journalism industry, specifically the newspaper industry, and talks about the challenges the industry faces.

Watch the Amy Vernon Interview

Randy DeCleene, civilian senior advisor to the Third Infantry Division Commanding General at Camp Speicher in Tikrit, Iraq, writes about two Army soldiers, Robert W. Collins and William A. Blount, who were killed as a result of wounds sustained from a roadside explosion near Mosul. He talks about the qualities that make up a soldier and how they hold their future, and the future of America in their hands.

Read the Randy DeCleene Interview

Bas Timmers, former newsroom editor at Dutch publication De Volskrant, owner of Pixels en Komma, talks about the future of European journalism and discusses his passion for writing. Timmers comments on the state of journalism in Europe by discussing the decline in circulation and ads and the transition from traditional journalist to multimedia journalist.

Watch the Bas Timmers Interview

Diane Katz, author of the forthcoming book "Win at Work," talks about the different kinds of conflict within organizations and explains how some can be good and others can be bad. She shares her theory of "The Working Circle" and gives examples of its success.

Read the Diane Katz Interview

Interview with Jerry Zurek, professor of English and communication department chair at Cabrini College, discusses how social media, such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, bring new potential to the reporting process. Zurek comments on how location-aware apps and crowdsourcing are useful and how blogging by journalists has become essential.

Read the Jerry Zurek Interview

An excellent new study from Boston University and the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism focuses on the quality, or lack of it, in press coverage of Republican Scott Brown's astonishing upset of Democrat Martha Coakley last January to win the U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts left vacant by the death of Edward Kennedy.

The study notes the embarrassing fact that on Jan. 10, the Boston Globe released a poll ... its own ... that showed Coakley ahead by 15 points. On election day Jan. 19, Brown won by about five points. Which leaves us two options to consider. Option 1: Twenty percent of the state's electorate suddenly changed their minds in the final week and a half. Option 2: the Globe's poll was incompetent.

I vote for Option 2. While undoubtedly many election races have momentum shifts, one this drastic seems unlikely. More likely is that this "poll" was more wishful thinking than scientific, it's a humiliation for a paper that considers itself the New York Times of its coverage area and is indeed owned by the NYT, and is reason No. 10,000 or so for why the public has lost confidence in the mainstream media.

On the Media Game blog is written by Gerry Storch.

Joshua Waldman, MBA, social media strategist at careerenlightenment.net, discusses the future of social media and how it relates to the future of journalism. He talks about the current upward trend of social media such as Facebook and Twitter and also explains why he thinks blogging is the most useful form of social media.

Read the Joshua Waldman Interview

Richard Laermer, founder and CEO of RLM PR and author, talks about the future of the internet. He shares his thoughts on citizen journalists and bloggers and also provides insight on the new media culture.

Watch the Richard Laermer Interview