For many, it’s the lack of institutional memory, and the potential for unenforced ethical standards that’s troubling. But ask anyone who’s written for the Internet and they’ll tell you the medium is famously self-correcting, if for no other reason than the litany of self-styled media critics to be found in comments on any number of stories. Barbara Iverson, co-editor and publisher of ChicagoTalks.org, said that it’s easier to check out the veracity of a story on the Internet.

There are models out there to fund the news, and this was another group that went underrepresented on the panel: No one from the business side was on the panel, and none of the CEOs and entrepreneurs who could fund a new kind of news organization were in the offing. Iverson started to discuss eight models for funding journalism, but only got as far as five before Davis cut her off, saying “I think you’re overwhelming us…” On the contrary, Iverson had managed to distill the economics of the news into a few easy-to-understand structures, even if you’d never seen the assets side of a balance sheet.