Podcasting

Because I am such a huge Keith Olbermann fan, a was naturally drawn to the link to his podcast page on the homepage of MSNBC.com. Upon further exploration I found that I could subscribe to have the latest episode of Countdown with Keith Olbermann downloaded onto my i-tunes everyday. I then realized that I could put that onto my new i-pod nano and watch it at my leisure throughout the day. I was suspicious about how much this was going to cost me when I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I could do all of this for free.
As my first episode finishes downloading, I sit here pondering an issue that has arisen in many of my journalism classes this year. The discussion is whether or not online news should be provided to the public free of charge. I will clarify now that I have no answer to this question. I can understand and relate to both sides of this argument. I do think that news is something that everyone should have access to so that we are all educated on what is going on in the world at any given time. However, the journalists that are writing and researching these stories need to be rewarded for their hard work and service.
A compromise ( for lack of a better word) was suggested by one my peers that the basic news about what is happening in our community and world should be provided free of charge, whereas more special interest news such as fashion or sports would be more of a "pay per view" or subscription sort of set up. I thought this was an interesting prospect that should be given consideration. But at the same time, I really loved finding out that I could watch my favorite news anchor everyday on my i-pod for free!