In an interview with On the Media's Bob Garfield, Project for Excellence in Journalism director Tom Rosenstiel says that news organizations are better positioned than entertainment media, despite an overall stormy outlook for the newspaper economy.

According to Rosenstiel, "entertainment is awash with competitors while the nation's great news outlets still own the field."

Rosenstiel's assessment stands in contrast to that of the Associated Press, which recently announced plans to increase its entertainment coverage. And while entertainment media may be a flooded market, it has experienced growth in the past year.

As for the main causes of newspaper revenue loss (go here for a summary of the latest figures from a Newspaper Association of America report), Rosenstiel pinpoints the virtual irrelevance today of the classifieds, once newspapers' main cash source, as one of the key factors in the revenue losses newspapers are currently experiencing.

According to Rosentiel, advertising in general will not generate enough revenue in the future, fueled partly by online consumers who tend to avoid clicking on ads. Instead he proposes a cable model, where the subscription fee for each major newspaper is embedded in the access fee to the internet company.

"There is a vested interest in the Verizons and the Comcasts of the world having a robust news business because it's such a draw for traffic," Rosentiel said.

Source: On the Media through Romenesko