For news organizations trying to figure out how to get readers to donate money or pay for online content, Dr. B.J. Fogg, a persuasive-technology psychologist at Stanford, is the go-to guy.

Former CBS anchorman Dan Rather told an Aspen audience Tuesday that journalism has declined to such a point that it is time for the government to intervene.

Most open-meetings, open-records and other right-to-know laws have been fought for and won by news organizations. When CSU officials voted in private to appoint a new chancellor, three Colorado news organizations sued. The university settled, and the public secured its right to know.

Ann Arbor, 45 miles west of Detroit, is home to the University of Michigan, a highly educated population and a relatively stable economy. But the News, like other newspapers, says it has been losing money as advertisers abandon print and readers seek information online or elsewhere.

“We knew there would be other people who wanted to do it — people with real money and a real budget. We said to ourselves, we have the circulation people, the press people, editorial. We already have the best part of a newspaper. We have the humans.”

Its message: Journalism is in crisis. Democracy depends on quality reporting. We need policy solutions.

Free Press’ Joe Torres and Victor Pickard write that the upheaval in the media industry offers an opportunity to reform the business and pursue policies that will protect journalism and, ultimately, the democratic system that depends on it.

Back in December, when IWantMyRocky.com debuted, John Ensslin, one of numerous Rocky Mountain News employees who helped launch the project, described the website as “more of a rally-the-troops kind of thing, where people can post their comments or even videos.”

Although the site succeeded in that respect, the enthusiasm and camaraderie it helped foster wasn’t enough to keep the Rocky in business. IWantMyRocky.com didn’t vanish in tandem with the tabloid, though.

Read Michael Roberts’ full post at Westword.com.