Information without a price barrier is essential for the operation of a democratic society. Publicly-funded dailies are one remnant of old-world media that I fully back as solving (partially) this problem.

As we start to rely on the internet, in a non-centralized manner (see NowPublic's coverage of the Boxing Day tsunami as an example of grassroots citizen journalism), it's fairly obvious that newsprint isn't going to keep up with the pace of our world.