VIA Michael Calderone:

"With liberal radio host Ed Schultz guest-hosting MSNBC's 6 p.m. show "1600" on Tuesday, The Observer reports that there are rumors he might be being groomed for his own show…"

"Ever since network president Phil Griffin told the NY Times that he was considering a 10 p.m. show to run instead of the "Countdown" rerun, a couple liberal radio hosts — Cenk Uygur, of "The Young Turks." and Air America's Sam Seder — have been lobbying for the job with grassroots campaigns. Both could peg to the success of Maddow, who cut her chops on Air America, as reason to support such a candidate."

Recently, in an excellent opinion piece in Newsweek, Jacob Weisberg, who runs the Slate Group for the Washington Post, laid out the case for a multitude of answers, rather than just one. In fact, Mr. Weisburg points out that the idea that subscriptions have been the only way to fund media is also mistaken. Media has a long history of finding new ways to fund itself.

“Nearly all of the most important journalistic institutions in the free world are hybrids of one form or another – for-profit, but underwritten by generous owners or other profitable businesses; not-for-profit, yet entrepreneurial; cooperative, or government-subsidized,” he writes. “While big-city newspapers were for many decades highly profitable, their news-gathering operations have usually required some form of external support. Even at their most successful, top-tier media institutions have never adhered to a simple, or single, business model. They are even less likely to follow one in the future.”

A must read for those interested in figuring out or delving into citizen journalism, pro-am journalism, crowdsourcing or whatever you want to call it.