Currently there are free traditional media alternatives to existing free traditional media news sources, but they all suffer from the same problem, they all perceive that google is deriving more revenue from their content then they are. If the Sun throws up a pay wall and reports positive results (granted thats a big if) then why would the Daily Mail not follow suit? And then eventually there go all the free news outlets if traditional media outlets happen to be your cup of tea.
CNN is unique since they have TV to fall back on for the time being and aren't in as bad shape as most major American papers. But again, if somebody like Murdoch shows that people can be conditioned to pay for news of a certain pedigreed source then they too will follow suit. Why wouldn't they, CNN technically still has a pay wall for their broadcast content in the States... a cable TV subscription.
Then what you have left are blogs, there maybe some good ones out there but some people will never trust them like they trust a source like The Washington Post or WSJ. And you have the Huffington Posts of the world, niche aggregators in the same (non automated) vein as google. And if a paywall goes up the DMCA notices will come out to squash the huffpos.
But it's all armchair quarterbacking until Murdoch actually pulls the trigger.
