I'm in the media business. Hahahahahaah. Is that a sick joke? Is there even a media business any more? Last I checked it looked like one of those smoldering post-napalm scenes from Apocalypse Now.

No, you certainly can't hammer on a typewriter next to Cary Grant and enjoy a two-martini lunch and a union paycheck anymore, I will tell you that. Those days are over.

Why even bring this up? Because apparently Steve Jobs is telling the media world they need to cut their prices to survive. Hahahahah. The prices are already cut, Steve. MOST STUFF IS FREE, geddit?! We're already broke, how does cutting prices help?

If that weren't insulting enough I surfed over on the D8 Conference Website to see what Vivian Schiller had to say. Who? My thoughts exactly. Vivian Schiller is the CEO of nonprofit National Public Radio (NPR). So, now we're looking for advice from the CEO of a nonprofit coprporation that funds operations by holding out a hat to a bunch of hypocritical granola-crunching yuppies. That won't work for me.

The bigger question is the viability of larger legacy media corporations trying to make the transition to digital. I think most of them are screwed, frankly.

Here are Top Five Signs Big Media is Screwed:

5) Big media: Large corporate overhead, slow-to-move, trapped in legacy business models (TV, newsprint, glossy paper). More importantly: Wrong DNA for Web.

4) Huge competition. Media is more fragmented than ever. And there's more competition than ever. And apparently a lot of really talented media people are willing to work for free -- or very little.

3) Media sponsors -- and independent producers -- have figured out how to build their own media on the Web. That's right, the client can post their own videos on YouTube -- without paying you as the middleman.

2) Advertising CPMs are rapidly descending into commoditized hell. In old media, people have figured out that splashy 30-second ad spots and back-cover spreads are way overpriced and have no accountability metrics.

1) Steve Jobs says you will be okay, ifyou cut prices (consult the music industry on this).

Sounds bleak, doesn't it? It's not that bleak, unless you are in love with the old-school models of Death-Star media conglomerates, where the sale executives still drives Mercedes' but the content producers are now in line at soup kitchens. Oh wait -- need to sell something? Damn, we fired everybody.

No, the solution to the new media world won't come from the big-time CEOs who are busy running media companies into the ground. It will come from the producers: the directors, journalists, and laborers who generate the creativity which is the source of media itself.

I envision it as a sort of undergowth that springs up following a forest fire. The media world, which has in many ways imploded, is being reconstructed by small, focused operations where creativity can prosper. One great example is the Bill Simmons revolution. Or how about the quick sale of True/Slant, which aggregates content from independent media producers.

Here's why it's not that bad: I think we've entered the great era of the entrepreneurial journalist. The great motherships of the past (newspapers, gigantorific publishing companies, e.t.c.) can't support the creative infrastructure anymore, so the infrastructure will be reborn on its own. If you are an unemployed journalists you now have three options: 1) Start working at Home Depot 2) Joing some blog network where you can work 18 hour days bloodying your fingers for pennies 3) Work and prosper in their own, individual way.

Yes, I'm saddened by no longer being able to hit Manhattan on the corporate expense account. But frankly it's more fun building a small targeted Website that is a labor of love. I now work from a (large) cabin in Montana. I'll call the shots, produce some contents, and drill into the Web world to find an audience.  This is the future of media. It's great!