Pretty much on the ball.
I'd recommend reading Flat Earth News by Nick Davies, if you haven't already. It's a great primer on the way that the news industry (broadcast and print) has dumbed down and 'streamlined' in the last few years. Term he uses for the reprinting of press releases is Churnalism. There's some horrific statistics in there about how the number of journalists has reduced across the regions, and how this has affected coverage of court cases and the like.
My personal opinion is that there's got to be a real shift in the relationship between a newspaper and its readers. Not in terms of user generated content, but in terms of what we expect, and what we're paying for. Tell me that my money's going on proper investigative journalism, show me the results and drop the unchecked churn, and I'll pay a good amount of money for a subscription (in print and online). It's the idea that we're investing in sustaining investigations that I think is key.
Put the summaries of the stories out in the open, and put the detail behind a very flimsy paywall. Make it clear that the reason for the paywall is that the income is needed to fund the very production of the stories that people are after, and go for their guilt to make them pay.
Never mind the entire fact that it's getting easier and easier to block online advertising, so that's probably a daft thing to base a business model on.
(also - I'm glad there's comments on Orlowski articles now, always reckon they'd be good for drawing some interesting stuff out)