Yesterday in E-Media Tidbits, Steffen Fjaervik wrote about the view that competition is endemic to the profession and business of journalism.

I'm going to push back on that. In my view, the strongly competitive culture of the news business is an adaptation that helped journalism mature and thrive over the last century. But times change.

It seems to me that media (all media, not just online) are evolving to become more integrated, collaborative, interactive, customized, and conversational. Given that -- plus overwhelming business pressures -- maybe our competitive culture is becoming an albatross around the neck of journalism.

Here's what I mean: Huge chunks of the traditional business model of news organizations are crumbling. Advertisers and consumers are shifting -- they can now reach each other directly and constructively, without our help, and they're busy creating their own media, too. Consolidation in the industry continues, drastically altering our competitive landscape.

And let's not forget: No one -- NO ONE -- can scoop the Internet. Ever.

Seems to me that under such circumstances, news organizations might do better to hone their unique strengths and collaborate more with other news organizations that offer complementary strengths -- similar to how weblogs support and enhance each other through cross-blog conversation. Imagine: someday a Pulitzer Prize might be awarded jointly to an enterprise reporting team spread across several news organizations. 

Maybe it's time to recognize and start dismantling the silos where we've unwittingly cornered ourselves in the name of "competition." Collaboration might be a way to create a more robust and distributed base of operations for traditional journalism. Fortunately, online media is an easy an inexpensive place to experiment, so it might be a good way to start.

Ultimately, what's more important -- the survival of quality journalism or the survival of the business structures that have supported professional journalists so far?

What are your thoughts on this? Please comment below.