Largely fueled by a red-hot ad market, 2005 appeared to be a year of strong economic growth for online news. Significantly, the growth came at a time when many other media sectors such as print and local TV were suffering.

What’s more, increasing revenue has created vast opportunities for further investment and technological development, though not always in traditional newsgathering operations. Many questions remain; probably the key one is whether the dominant online economic model can produce quality journalism.