"Funny thing is, if this future came to pass and the market were nothing but self-published autonomous authors either writing without editorial or paying out of pocket for it, if we were flooded with good product mixed with bad like gold in a stream, it would be about five seconds before someone came along and said: hey, what if I started a company where we took on all the risk, hired an editorial staff and a marketing staff to make the product better and get it noticed, and paid the author some money up front and a percentage of the profits in exchange for taking on the risk and the initial cost? So writers could, you know, just write?

And writers would line up at their door."

"But how do you present that disclosure? A link in each web article that jumps to a spreadsheet of donors and dollar signs, and let the reader judge? Conversely, many people trust NPR and PBS as a news source, but are satisfied by the simple roll call of sponsors and slogans.

So how do we present this information and context honestly and tactfully? It reminds me of a discussion at ScienceOnline2010 promoting fact-checking policy disclosures. What if you could only afford to fact-check 10% of your reporters’ articles? Does that disclosure give your readers more or less confidence in your service?"