Can vice save journalism?

It's an intriguing idea, especially since the profession had such a cozy relationship with vice in the old days.

Arthur Gelb, the New York Times' famed former culture impresario and managing editor, begins his wonderful memoir, "City Room," by describing the racier Times newsroom of the 1940s. He says it was a time of sex in closets, a movie-star mistress of the publisher sashaying about and two tough bookies from Hell's Kitchen at a corner desk taking bets as "wads of bills peeked from their pockets."

In his memoir, "Gaily, Gaily," Ben Hecht describes his years as a cub reporter at the Chicago Daily Journal starting in 1910. It was a time when reporters were still "exotic adults," he writes, and journalism was considered by many as "a catch basin for hooligans, bar flies and minor swindlers."

The first thing Hecht did was get his girlfriend, who was "in harlot servitude" when they met, hired as the "first girl reporter" at the paper for $12 a week by pretending she was a Van Arsdale who was a niece of Edith Wharton.

When she got caught selling her services in the newsroom, Hecht's cynical Irish editor advised him that reforming women was a time-waster. "The female, from birth onward, is a mist of lies," the editor intoned. "And her white belly is a shrine for swindle and delusion."

Hecht then plotted with his colleague Charles MacArthur – they would later write "The Front Page" – to revive a hanged criminal with a shot of adrenaline and then charge newspaper editors around the country $50 each for the "exclusive" on the "Walking Corpse."

In these times when papers and magazines are disappearing and shrinking – the New York Times is cutting 100 more newsroom jobs and Conde Nast is closing four magazines – we need life rafts. Publications once buoyed by splashy ads evoking drinking and sex are now conjuring ways to use drinking and sex to subsidize the news.

The New York Times, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal have wine clubs. Conde Nast has started an online dating Web site for a fee of $30 a month called TrulyMadlyDating.com to "unite glamorous girls with fashion-conscious GQ-reading boys to create matches made in style heaven."

Mortimer Zuckerman, who owns the Daily News and U.S. News & World Report, proposed that the government could save newspapers by allowing sports betting on newspaper Web sites.

"It would take congressional legislation and the willingness on the part of the government to confront gambling and casino interests that have blocked this," he said.

I tracked down Zuckerman in Jerusalem on Tuesday to ask him about it. "Newspapers are so critical for public dialogue and holding public officials responsible," he told me. "And who's going to be able to afford original reporting in the next five years? Very, very few."

He said some British newspapers make millions on betting games like Bingo. "People are spending money on what is basically a social vice anyhow," he said. "So why not use it to preserve the First Amendment? It's not a perfect solution, but it is a solution."

Rep. Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, introduced a bill to legalize and regulate online gambling. But he told me that he had to exempt sports gambling to round up enough votes to get it passed.

Nick Pileggi, who wrote the books and screenplays for "Goodfellas" and "Casino," sees no downside. "It would be a wonderful, huge blow against organized crime because the money would be taken out of what the mob gets," he said. "And every state has a lottery, so nobody from the state is going to stand up and say 'We're against gambling.' "

He said that if newspapers would stop being so stuffy, they could set up ATM-style machines in lobbies and at newsstands and "take over a business that the mob now does illegally worth $20 (billion) to $40 billion a year." "Newspapers are not sacred papal offices. It's a Damon Runyon business."

Arthur Gelb may have written about the Runyon days fondly, but he disputes the virtue of vice.

"How about you get some Vegas showgirls to come to the newsroom, do a little performance and charge admission?" he bristled. "Or you could have an escort service. … Where do you stop this nonsense?"

I don't know. The Vegas part doesn't sound so bad.

Maureen Dowd writes for the New York Times. Her column appears routinely in The Bee on Thursdays.