The free market works when its free but what happens when it isn't

Chris Anderson stirred up the debate at last night's Journalism leaders forum at the University of Central Lancs.

The author of the Long Tail stirred up the debate with his thoughts of the future of journalism and the media when he unashamingly brough a capitalist model to the debate.

Saying that the free market will prevail,he forsaw that the uneconomic media organisations will fall by the wayside in the fal out from the current media upheaval.

This obviously leads to questions such as who provides the essential information in a democratic society?

The panel debated whether the market is free.It may be the case in California,but how does that model apply to the UK with its tradition of public sector broadcasting.

Also on the panel was Richard Waghorn who runs the site www.myfootballwriter.com

He made the very good point that there aremany situations where the professional trained journalist is needed.

everybody can't go into the locker room,the council meeting, magistrates court.....the scarcity is access to the “private conversation “ and people need to be trained to do this.