Maybe the global newspaper folk, who seem to be the most serious users of the platform, should form a joint venture, buy up twitter, disseminate microblogging news (ad)free and simply use the embedded links to drive traffic to their web platforms (for subscriptions and more in-depth news coverage).

So twitter becomes a sort of neutral preview / public announcement forum, like a kiosk with folded newspapers on the street: you can see the headlines, but you need to buy to read.

Alternatively, they could do the same from scratch without twitter...

The problem is not what happens to twitter. The problem is how to have healthy, representative, inquisitive journalism