wanted: writers of independent means.

Is writing for the rich? That's the question Francis Wilkinson, one of the original writing recruiters for the Huffington Post, poses in this essay from this week's The Week.

If not for the rich, certainly for folks with day jobs. You wonder what that tells us -- about the industry itself, and the value we readers/viewers place on thoughtful and responsible journalism.

From his essay:

The Internet has brought the newspaper business to its knees. Some serious magazines are undergoing stress tests of their own. Maybe a certain kind of writing about the world, informed by underdog experience and lower-class perspective, will also prove to be a relic of the dead-tree era. Such writing wasn’t in great supply before. But movie stars, business executives, even accomplished authors all write for free these days. Why should some kid nobody’s ever heard of get paid?