News-Record.com

Work in newspapers long enough and you get to know hundreds if not thousands of journalists, who over the years tend to scatter across the country.

With the bloodbath of the past month or so, my thoughts have turned to my friends at McClatchy, Gannett and Advance properties, the New York Times, the Washington Post and Atlanta and Houston. Other places, too.

"Do you know if he's safe?" I ask. "Have you heard about her?"

Many still have jobs; some don't. Some want to stay in professional journalism; some are saying to hell with it. I worry for them all and for the companies in trouble. I worry for the loss of the professional news gathering muscle that drives so much civic knowledge and participation. We encourage every journalist here to seek out as much digital training and experience as possible because that is the way the craft and the audience are moving. But even that expertise isn't always enough.

In that light, Dan Conover, our friend from the first ConvergeSouth, outlines a vision of the future that seems as close to reality as any I've seen. It's long but it well worth a read, some investigation and a lot of thought. Dan concludes that the next decade is one of "experimentation, opportunity and chaos."

I believe he's right. A lot of first-rate journalistic talent is on the loose. It's raining outside right now, but the sun will eventually come out. My guess is that we're at the beginning of a great age of journalistic innovation.

By the way, I know this national unemployment virus is not limited to journalism. Heck, I have sisters working for Nortel and IBM. At least, they were the last time I checked.

Monday update: Dan Kennedy says what I alluded to.

John Stewart's well-aimed shot at the pundits on CNBC earlier this week got me thinking. Like most people, I read and hear a lot of reports from pundits. Stewart mocks the financial ones; my touchstone are the scaremeisters who predicted $5 per gallon gas. Anyway, we publish the pundits, my RSS is filled with them, they're all over cable TV.

Bryan Appleyard makes note of a research study on the accuracy of pundit predictions:

He took 284 pundits and asked them questions about the future. Their performance was worse than chance. With three possible answers, they were right less than 33 per cent of the time. A monkey chucking darts would have done better.

The New Yorker wrote about the "he" Appleyard refers to -- Phillip Tetlock -- three years ago and explains the prediction study more deeply. Worth remembering.

Howard Weaver pointed to this story about President Obama trash talking at a Bulls-Wizards game. He said, "I don't see how you could fail to love this: Obama talks trash at Chicago Bulls game."

What interested me more was that the story got 3,834 comments in less than 48 hours. 3,834! Naturally the conversation wanders away from the original post into how wonderful/terrible Obama is. Still, I wondered whether, first, anyone past #23 read the other comments and, second, whether they really thought they had something fresh to add.

Then Tish Grier and I were discussing (via Twitter) pay Web sites. She asked: "The other day, someone floated the idea of having peeps pay to comment. what do you think of that?"

Pay to speak. If you think your comment has value, put your money where your mouth is. Interesting idea. It would certainly give new meaning to "a penny for your thoughts."

Moment after I saw that cartoon, I read this story about a congressman who delighted in the shuttering of the Rocky Mountain News.

Will Bunch handily deconstructs the congressman and the reasons for his assertion, while also noting that the Denver Post should have done the legwork he did.

I have trouble giving credence to anyone rejoicing in the death of any newspaper. It doesn't make logical sense. (Yes, you'll be shocked to know that it does happen in the comments of this blog, and, yes, I have a stake in the matter.) Jobs are lost. Voices are silenced. Customers are disappointed. A form of journalism is snuffed.

The benefits of the loss of a newspaper are more obscure, to me at least. They tend to be personal, as in the case of Rep. Polis, or competitive. I don't buy the argument that it's good for any community for the paper to die. Granted, newspapers need to do a better job at expanding their journalism and going to where people are gathered. That's a challenge of both the journalists and the business model. In the meantime, don't like the paper? Write the editor. Start a blog. Don't buy it. But to hope for its failure?

To rejoice in another's misfortune, I don't understand that -- unless you're talking Duke and Carolina.

I'm saddened by the announcement that the Reidsville Review and Eden Daily News are cutting back to two days a week.

While I applaud the all-local format, I know that many of their readers will be upset by the papers' going from five-day-a-week delivery to two. It's a loss of a valued habit.

Supposedly, most community papers aren't being hit by the advertising and circulation declines faced by papers in larger markets. But unemployment is at 10 percent in Rockingham County, higher than the state average. And the owner of the three Rockingham-based papers, Media General, is struggling with large debt so this may not be a problem entirely of the papers' making.

I have always thought that three community newspapers in Rockingham County is too many, even though they exchange content. When Media General bought the papers in the 90s, we expected the corporation to merge them into one. In retrospect, I don't know that that would have made any difference in this media/financil environment, though.

Ken Paulson, former editor of USA Today, made a speech last month that is getting a lot of attention. As part of it, he imagines a world in which the newspaper were invented after the modem and the Internet.

I can see the headlines now: "Cutting-edge newspapers threaten Google's survival."

I agree with Paulson's point -- that newspapers are a bargain and that's there's still a lot of life left in them -- but I wish he had used another scenario to illustrate that. It's just too easy to poke holes in the one he used.

It presumes that in the 300 years since Gutenberg invented the digital modem no digital denizen has created local sites of news content, that there are no fact-checking mechanisms on the Web, that there is no way to aggregate items of interest to you and that computer viruses still abound.

The problem is that there are local sites of news content now and there are many ways to find items of interest and there are fact-checking mechanisms -- not the least of which are the users. (I'm not about to risk credulity by saying viruses would be snuffed.)

I understand that Ken was speaking to an audience of newspaper people. He waxes eloquently and rightly about the importance of strong journalism and watchdogging power. But imagining journalism as a newsprint phenomenon doesn't help us move forward.

People can get the news how, when and where they want it. Some like it first thing in the morning delivered to their door on newsprint. Some watch video. Some prefer it throughout the day on their smart phone. Some get it as I'm doing now -- on the computer. Many of us use all of the above.

Like Ken, I am bullish on newspapers. But the point is that solid journalism can, does and must thrive in every system. The sooner we stop thinking that journalism only counts if it is printed on newsprint the better.

He ends right: When we do our jobs the right way, when we strive everyday to publish reports of integrity and balance, when we ask the tough questions, when we fight to keep the public's business public and when we provide the kind of thorough and balanced reporting that is the life blood of a democracy, we fulfill our promise to that first generation of Americans who believed that one of the best ways to guarantee a democracy was a free and vigorous press.

Yesterday was my 10th anniversary as editor of the News & Record. (I'd have posted this yesterday but I was busy celebrating.)

One thing I've learned is that it was much easier being an editor when newspapers were the only game in town and all we had to do to get readers and make money was to open the doors. (That was before my time, but I've heard stories.)

Easy is only fun for a while. Sooner or later, you need a challenge. Leading a newsroom in today's economic -- to say nothing of competitive -- environment is about as interesting and challenging as I can handle for. More important, it's fun, despite what you might read in the trade press.

Next challenge? Climbing Everest.

Editors from The Washington Post and Baltimore Sun said today that they have agreed to begin sharing certain stories, photos and other news content.

This idea would have been heresy a year ago. Heck, it might be heresy now.

But markets change, people change and traditions that have no value to readers must change, too.

We have used stories and photos from other newspapers for years, as they were filtered through the Associated Press. Last year, we began working with McClatchy and have used stories directly reprinted a day later from our "competitors," including the High Point Enterprise, the Winston-Salem Journal, the Reidsville Review, the News & Observer and the Charlotte Observer. Included the name of the paper right in the byline, too. We decided we could serve readers better if we put aside the need to create everything here.

I haven't heard from many readers -- I can think of only one -- who has raised a question about it.

Do you care if we entered into explicitly coverage agreements to share same-day content with newspapers around here? Do you even notice the bylines?

I've not read all of the latest Elon University/Pew Internet Project report, but it's interesting so far. Some predictions from "technology experts and social analysts:"

* 77% said the mobile computing device (the smartphone) with more significant computing power will be 2020's primary global Internet-connection platform. OK, I buy that.
* 56% said while Web 2.0 is bringing some people closer, social tolerance will not be heightened by our new connections. No kidding.
* They were evenly split over the notion that the greater transparency of people and institutions afforded by the Internet will heighten individual integrity and forgiveness. But we can hope, can't we?
* 56% agreed that in 2020 "few lines (will) divide professional from personal time, and that's OK."

Wait a minute. You can separate professional and personal time?

In the comments thread of this post, Ted asked: I was wondering if you thought an online only newspaper for Greensboro would work, both editorially and in terms of making money. (Read the whole comment.)

I answered that I thought it would be risky. Then, upon thought, I posed the question on Twitter. Got some good Twittered and e-mailed responses from smart people saying that, yes, an online only news operation can work, serve the community and make money.

Steve Yelvington questioned that there would be many professional journalists -- Ted's idea is to use professional journalists -- who have the skills and business sense to pull it off. I think there are.

I'm just not sure that the Guilford County marketplace is ready to support it yet, and I refer to it that way to include both users and businesses. But that yet is in bold for a reason. I know there have been/are attempts at making a go with news sites in the area. Want to weigh in?

Related: "The core audience for news just isn't that big."

Bam, just like that I got the privilege of paying another $100 to the second person to complete the New Year's digital challenge. Last week, it was Melissa Umbarger. Today it is reporter Gerald Witt.

Gerald is a host of Inside Scoop and is in the midst of planning this.

Down $200 and it's still a great investment.

I just contributed $25 to help an effort to hire a journalist to fact-check the political advertising in a San Francisco election this November. What's the San Francisco tie? I don't know and don't care.

I donated because I'm interested in how this microphilanthropy in journalism will work. Basically, this is using a social network to generate small donations -- a lot of small donations -- to pay for a piece of journalism. Given the evolution/revolution in journalism and business models, $25 is a small price to pay to see how it works. Consider it an investment in the future.

Donate here. Or, for a better explanation, check out DigiDave.

If publishers take three audacious but absolutely essential steps, the print newspaper industry can save itself. All three of my suggestions are predicated on the simplest principle of capitalism: scarcity increases demand.

That's from a column written by Ted Rall. His prescription:

1. All newspapers shut down their Web sites
2. Aggressively enforce their copyright
3. Drop the wire services

I suspect this article will get great play at journalism Web sites. But there are at least two problems with this, and Rall is not alone among newspaper pundits in failing to address them.

First, one of the two core issues for papers is the scarcity of advertising revenue. Where is the revenue in his prescription? Will big box department stores and classified advertisers magically rush back to newsprint? Or will they continue to diversify their marketing efforts, using all the tools of the Internet? I think most of us can guess the answer to that.

Second, Rall assumes that people will start buying papers because they can't get to newspaper Web sites. There's little evidence to support that assumption, even as there is a great deal of wishin' and hopin.' Will people in their 20's who now get their news and information from dozens of places flock to newsprint when news Web sites are shuttered? Everything I read and observe suggests otherwise. And it ignores the competitive environment. There are many other sources of news out there, and with the shuttering of newspaper sites, many new ones will pop up.

There are plenty of opportunities for newspapers and journalism to grow in tandem with digital innovations. Going back to the good old days isn't one.

I've read a number of reports about the latest survey of newspaper editors by Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. I haven't read the actual report yet, and I'll get to it, but the stories seem consistent.

We march right along with most of what the other papers report: smaller staff, smaller newshole, less world news, more local emphasis, more movement to digital.

One point to make before I read the whole thing. Some commentators bemoan the cut back in space devoted to international news. We scaled back some years ago because our research showed that a vast majority of readers said they got that elsewhere. Why use the newsprint to give readers something that they don't look to us to provide?

(I was surprised that 15% of newspapers over 100,000 reported not having reduced their staffs over the past three years. I wonder where those papers are. I know they aren't in N.C.)

Now that we've faced the reality of the newspaper business, what now? Where do journalists go from here? Where do news companies go?

Go to where the people are going, right? Well, duh. (Funny, though, how we have such problems figuring out where that is.)

Now, thanks to Michele McLellan we have some information from Jeffrey Cole, who runs the Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern Cal, that helps shine a light. His research on young people and the media is filled with potential for news companies. As McLellan reports his comments at a conference yesterday:

Life of a 12-24-year-old:

* Will never read a newspaper but attracted some magazines
* Will never own a land-line phone (and may never wear a watch)
* Will not watch television on someone else's schedule much longer
* Trust unknown peers more than experts
* For the first time (2005) willing to pay for digital content
* Little interest in the source of information and most information aggregated
* Community at the center of Internet experience
* Think not interested in advertising or affected by brand, but wrong
* Everything will move to mobile
* Television dominates less than any generation before (important but not the only thing that's important to them)
* Want to move content freely from platform to platform with no restrictions
* Want to be heard (user generated)
* Use IM. Communicate through Facebook. Think e-mail is for their parents

Some of this research will surprise of some of us, and my guess is that many will deny it. "They will trust peers they don't know over us??? They don't care about the source of what they're getting??? They don't use e-mail??? That doesn't make sense. Everybody uses e-mail! How can they not trust us? We've been here 100 years!"

But this is an excellent roadmap showing us where people are moving. It's mobile. It's social networks. Our "trusted brand" is devalued. We can talk about various platforms; they just want it when, how and where they want it. The challenge for news companies is to diversify, expand and experiment. The challenge for journalists is to learn and use new digital skills to extend their journalism.

Steve Smith of the Spokesman-Review has another take on Cole's talk.

Andy Bechtel has an interesting post about a commenter on an N&O blog asking "Please report this in a normal article in the print version of the N&O also."

Andy observes: It's interesting that this reader sees a reporter's blog post this way -- as less significant, if not "abnormal." The request also indicates that the post would have greater weight on newsprint than on screen. It's somehow less serious in the blog format -- and of course, not as widely read as it would be in the print newspaper.

As producing print media becomes less profitable and reporting through blogs increases, readers can expect to see more news that appears only on the Web. Just when those posts will have the same impact as a story in the paper is unclear.

We have had similar requests, and I have talked with some about it. They didn't see the blog format as less relevant. Indeed, they loved the give and take. Instead, they simply wanted a different and wider audience to read the post (and discussion). They wanted to make sure the print newspaper's 200,000 or so readers were informed so that they might be inspired to effect change. Bear in mind, of course, that the posts they were interested in replicating in print are ones in which their views were affirmed. Or at least they thought the posts affirmed them.

We are a good ways from "just when those posts will have the same impact as a story in the paper." That is not to diminish the value or impact of bloggers -- I kind of like us -- but a reflection of how people use the paper and its built-in readership and how they use the Web, which is far more vast, diverse and fragmented. And, of course, it is still in its infancy and its users are still learning, adapting and growing.

Doug Fisher -- and Terry Heaton before him and Steve Boriss before him and Vin Crosbie before him -- has adapted the Kubler-Ross model on death and dying to newspapers.

It's not a bad fit, either.

As decribed by Wikipedia, the stages are:

Denial: "It can't be happening."
Anger: "Why me? It's not fair."
Bargaining: "Just let me live to see my children graduate."
Depression: "I'm so sad, why bother with anything?"
Acceptance: "It's going to be OK."

Heaton suggested in April that, as a whole, the industry is at the depression stage. Today, after last week when roughly 900 journalists, according to Mark Potts, lost their jobs in announced layoffs, my guess is that the depression stage is standing room only, all right.

Everyone I know feels the instability of the marketplace, the job insecurity and the fear of the unknown -- unknown future, unknown skills. Part of it is certainly inept management; I'm working on that here. Guiding folks through the stages is among the most difficult things I've done as a boss.

Industrywide, it is time for acceptance, and I think more journalists are there than the reports on Romenesko would suggest. That's the only way to focus on the challenges before us. While we enjoy, understand and, perhaps, privately cheer on the Angry Journalist, we also know intellectually that economic reality means we look to the future. Like, yesterday.

That means we understand how the world has changed, and we understand how our journalistic skills and assumptions must change. For instance, learning what it takes to be a digital journalist is vital. Reaching readers -- information consumers, really -- where, how and when they want it is good for journalism. Listening to and learning from them is even better.

Nostalgia for the good old days is a new form of professional shackles. What we did back then doesn't work any longer and isn't coming back. We control our own destiny by embracing the new opportunities to practice journalism. And if you truly love journalism, why wouldn't you want to reach and engage with new people? For instance:
* Thousands of people watched our video of Obama's speech as well as read about it online and in the paper.
* Hundreds of gearheads read about pit crews in the paper and watched the video online.
* Every day citizens discuss issues of the day at the coffee shop and lunch counters and online at our site and others. And they aren't just the predictable hot button topics. They include topics such as daycare for jurors, organ donation and problems a neighborhood is having.

And that's just us and we aren't even leaders in the field. Other opportunities lie with microblogging and beat blogging and social networking. As noted journalist Jerry Seinfeld told us, we should look to the cookie. In this case, Oreos, which has gone from one vanilla creme filled cookie to a dozen different types of Oreo, with different flavors and shapes and coatings. Journalism is in the process of reaching different customers in the ways those people want to be reached.

Clearly, I am optimistic about the future of good journalism. How do we pay for it? Smarter people than I -- thank goodness -- are working on that. Potts proposes solutions. So does Newspaper Next. So does Jeff Jarvis. (Link fixed.)

In the old way of thinking, it will be a rough road. If you think of journalism as ink on paper, your paradigm is breaking apart. If you think of journalism as telling good stories the best way you can, the world is opening like a brilliantly colored Chinese fan.

Monday update: Jay Rosen brings a different, more apt, metaphor into play.

In an exchange about something else, Cara Michele writes:

My mom and I joke about technology. If you want to reach her, you have to call her. She checks her voice mail regularly. She checks her email every few days, if that.

And my kids and I have these weird hybrid online/out loud conversations when we're in the next room from each other. Wonder what it will be like for the next generation?

(Reprinted with permission)

Reminds me of being at a family birthday party. I'm seated in the middle of the table. To my right are the 50- to 60-year-old adults talking about car engines. To my left are the 20-somethings talking about motherboards. That was five years ago.

Now the youngsters at the table would be talking about what their phones can do. And they'd be texting it back and forth.

Some of us have been trying to figure out how to use Twitter to extend our journalism. I know there are a lot of journalism apostles out there, and they make sense, but it's "one more thing" for a staff that is already awash in "one more things."

Terry Heaton cites a study that underscores the why -- if not the how -- with a heavy black marker. And it is a big motivator.

But the big story -- and it is huge -- is that nearly nine of ten in the age group 18-34 use (text messaging, blogging and social networking), making it the most dominant form of communications for the group.

Then he quotes an article about the study in Online Media Daily:

Text messaging, meanwhile, proves that mobile media also is becoming a dominant source of personal communications beyond the cell phone, even if mass marketers haven't yet figured out how to crack the potential of marketing through the medium. The percentage of U.S. adults who say they've never sent a text message fell to 41% this year from 49% a year ago. And among 18- to 34-year-olds, it dropped to 22% from 38%.

As Terry says, the number of people getting info through texting is only going to grow and become more connected.

If you believe that you need to go to where the people are -- the days of them coming to you automatically are certainly over -- then this is pretty clear directional evidence. And a strong motivator.

Jack Lail points out that Wikipedia posted news of Tim Russert's death before the Associated Press moved an alert.

Who's surprised? Reporting by many with instant publishing skills beats media bureaucracy every time.

As a related whine, we're a member of the AP, but it does so many irritating things suggesting that it has forgotten it is an association of members. An example of the bureaucracy's bad judgment is aptly described by Jeff Jarvis.

Amid all the blowhards and loudmouths on all sides of the discussion about the future of news and journalism, there is one voice that is clear, provocative, intelligent, respectful and, I think, on target: Jay Rosen. He knows Greensboro; he was a guest force at the first ConvergeSouth.

If you aren't a reader, be a watcher. ScribeMedia.Org has a video interview with Jay that is worth the hour. It will bring you up to date with the changes in media and what the future could be.

(I can hear my own staff now: "An hour? Robinson complains about our videos that are longer than three minutes!" I do, too. It's worth an hour to learn about your future.)

One of my reporters asked me this very question a few weeks ago. How many years will it be until there is no print edition of the (News & Record)?

The editor of the L.A. Times says at least 35 years for his pub. I told our guy 30 years. Our reasoning was the same. Boomers are core newspaper readers, and there is a lot of life in them (us) yet. Couple that with the expected growth in the Triad with Fed Ex and the planned Interstates, we should have at least a couple generations of life. I also agree that the growth of digital journalism and the evolution of a strong business model will come.

But the newspaper will look and read differently than it does today, and the changes will come much faster than they have in the past. That, more than whether there is print or not, is the biggest challenge both for readers and journalists.

Thursday update: Shows what I know: Steve Ballmer says 10 years.

Mark Binker gets his hand slapped by Clinton press folks for acting like a citizen of the United States -- going to the Clinton fund-raiser along with 700 people yesterday and then writing about it.

I have resisted, until now, pointing out the fact that there were 700 people in that venue, 95 percent of who were toting cell phones with cameras and recorders, a bunch with personal cameras and all, I would think, with decent enough memories to relate the event to friends and neighbors. So since everyone invited to the event was potentially a reporter, that "closed press" thing seemed pretty laughable.

I think it has been suggested before that the Clintons are working under a 20th century media mentality which is no longer operable in the age of citizen journalism. Yesterday was an up-close taste of that.

In one way this a dark day in media.

* Newspaper circulation, generally speaking, continues to decline.
* The News & Observer is offering voluntary buyouts to about 25% of its employees.
* The Wall Street Journal continues its shift from national business paper to national paper.
* Another newspaper, The Capital Times in Madison, Wisc., closes its 6-day-a-week print edition. (Saturday, actually.)

I suppose industry evolution sometimes looks that way.

Yet, it's also a day of hope, as The Capital Times goes online. Not to those in Madison who were laid off, of course, but to the rest of us ink-stained wretches interested in the future of journalism. It will be a tough evolution -- and it will have to make adjustments faster than we normally think of evolution. Competition is stiff, niches are nearly filled, the marketplace is unforgiving and readers are saturated with information. (That is best described by Jay Rosen.) But it could well become a laboratory for journalistic innovation. Newspapers still developing a Web presence -- and who isn't -- will be watching.

It is a grand and noble strategy to continue to bring its voice and values to the Madison community. I hope it works.

A friend expressed disappointment that I did not attend the Gene Roberts speech at the Friends of the Library event at UNCG last week. My response surprised and, I suspect, disappointed him even more: "I have heard enough retired editors talk about the good old days and how we should fix newspapers to last a lifetime."

I meant no disrespect to Roberts, one of the three or four most significant newspaper editors of the past 50 years. He has one heckuva story and deserves all the honors he gets. He was here to talk about his book with Hank Klibanoff, The Race Beat, which I have read and admire. Not only are there good journalism stories in it, but there are good hero stories in it. But I read and talk with retired editors and reporters who describe the solution to newspaper problems as a return to the good old days when the daily paper was the only game in town.

Isn't it pretty to think so?

From what I hear, Roberts also bemoaned the contraction of newsrooms and of international reporting. I agree. How can you not? Doubling the size of reporting staffs would certainly serve the community. The more journalists reporting the good, the bad and the ugly, the better.

But those are the effects of problems facing newspapers not the cause. While good journalism has not changed markedly since the 1990s, technology has. So has the audience. So have people's habits. Not addressing those changes in discussions about journalism and newspapers is like talking about television as if there were still only three channels.

Those changes:
* the economic distress faced by traditional newspaper advertisers such as department stores
* the loss of classifieds revenues
* the splintering of the attentions and interests of the audience
* the ability to get news and information from thousands of other places and in dozens of other ways
* the sluggishness with which newspapers have anticipated the future (now present) and the sluggishness of their response

These won't be fixed by reducing the profit margin or going back to the journalistic world of the 1980s and 90s. They will be addressed by innovation, peering around corners and going to where the people are. And producing great journalism.

Steve Yelvington uses a telling, humbling anecdote from a trip to Thailand to make the same point: We can sit and bemoan the passing of the era of the great metropolitan newspaper or we can choose to look for ways to invent the future. I think journalism will be changed, but it's going to survive.

I would go further. By inventing the future, journalism will be stronger. It just won't be entirely in newspaper form.

Sunday update: Related from Doug Fisher.

On Friday, I was interviewed by a journalism student working for ASNE Reporter, the newspaper that will cover the upcoming American Society of Newspaper Editors' convention in Washington. His story assignment: Will newspapers survive? What can be done to save them?

This assignment saddened me. Are we really still asking that question?

Yes, newspapers will survive, although not flourish or endure. I'm thinking that newspapers are good until the baby boomers start dying out in 30 years. I base this on Phil Meyer's generational research. Who knows what they'll be like, but it's safe to say that papers will be smaller, more focused and more niched. And many of them won't publish every day. Some options here.

But these are really the wrong questions, I told him. (Even though they are being discussed elsewhere by people smarter than I.) The more interesting question the editors should be thinking about is whether and how professional journalism will survive and flourish.

I'm think it will. Part of that is my heart talking, I admit. But I believe it with my head, too. Our challenge is to make sure that what create has value and that we can get it before the eyeballs of those who value it. And there are a lot of innovators working on that.

James Maroney, publisher of the Dallas Morning News: If you are I the newspaper business, you are in the business of managing decline. If you are in the news and information business, then you have a healthy future.

The news business is undergoing a transformation that's occurring faster than many of us thought. Our mistake is thinking of it as a threat rather than as the greatest opportunity journalism has ever had. There will be a living there if we can figure out how to be the discoverers.

Fortunately, the ASNE conference schedule seems to focus on change and digital journalism. Not that I'm going to be there.

If the future of news is free, then why charge $20 to see its past?

That's what I was thinking when I read that it will cost a double sawbuck to visit the Newseum when it opens in Washington next month.

That could be a problem. I like history, I like museums and I love the news business. But in a city filled with history and museums -- am I going to visit one devoted to the history of news? Particularly when the Smithsonian is free? And if they aren't going to get someone like me....

The Newseum's VP says it's not aimed at me, which is probably good: "Our mission is helping the public understand how important a free press is to a functioning democracy," says Paul Sparrow.

I understand the importance of a free press. I just wish so many media organizations had not spent $435 million to do it. I know we're a self-absorbed lot, but doesn't this feel over the top?

At a time when the newspaper industry is in distress -- and newspaper companies paid big money to support the Newseum -- I question the priorities.

There's no reason that journalism shouldn't have a museum all its own. There are sure a lot of less important topics with their own museums. (Don't make fun of the Gopher Hole Museum, either.)

Understanding the past is fine, but it is the future that most of us are interested in understanding.

Update: Mark Potts smartly weighs in with more questions.

It is interesting -- not funny, not amusing -- to read about the big papers adopting practices of smaller papers.

Jack Shafer at Slate writes about some changes in the editing process at The Washington Post: Removing layers of editing. Allowing flexibility in determining who edits stories and when. Creating collaboration among assignment editors, copy editors and photo and designers. Earlier decision-making. Wider spans of control. (Via Romenesko.)

As the market changes, the economy slumps and traditional news operations contract, such changes are mandatory. Smaller papers like us moved in this direction several years ago. Smaller papers than us have always operated this way because they have to.

To some extent, the changes follow the Innovator's Dilemma idea that good is good enough for many newspaper readers. Why edit a story four times when twice is good enough?

They work because communication and collaboration are simpler in small organizations. In the smallest of papers, everyone does everything. Editors also report and design. Reporters also take photos and edit. Everyone helps in the production. Collaboration is vital, and silos are impossible to erect. I know because I've worked at such newspapers. As the organization grows, it attracts and nurtures specialists.

And as it contracts, it becomes important to increase the span of control and to reduce the number of hands and eyes that touch the story or photo. Writing and editing for the Web throughout the day is the obvious course. Next comes reducing the geographic coverage area and tightly focusing coverage topics.

I've written about the number of editors before and won't repeat it. Our blogs aren't edited precisely because we want a voice of authority and a conversational style to come through. (Shafer's allusion to reporters who can't write used to be true; we have employed plenty of people who were great reporters and poor writers. Some years ago, we realized that we could no longer afford that luxury and that we needed to choose good reporters who could write their way out of a paper bag. Please withhold your comments about this writer.)

What I suspect is that the big papers are struggling to find the right balance between "feet on the street" and the receivers -- editors and designers. We are, too.

WIth apologies to Seth Godin, who inspired this post:

I often get asked by budding journalists how to break into the business. Here is my newest best advice: Don't.

The business is too tough. Do something else. Seriously. Go into PR. Go to grad school. You must be good at something else. Figure out what it is and do it.

Inspired by Ryan Sholin's post at Invisible Inkling, in which he is wearying of the "business of chasing after curmudgeons with a laptop in my hand, shouting 'But you got it all wrong!'" I want to pose the question in a different way.

Isn't it time that we just let the curmudgeons go, treating them as if they are the equivalent of newspaper trolls?

Hardly a day passes without Romenesko linking to someone bemoaning the loss of the good old days, how dumb newspaper owners are and how stupid the audience is? I grant you things were easier when we had more money and more control. But were they better for readers? No. Could we tell our stories in new, helpful ways? No.

Unless you're looking at history to learn for the future, you're wasting your time. Move on. Complaining about the present won't bring the past back.

...about the way things are.

Rex Smith of the Albany Times-Union explains why the paper isn't identifying the 24-year-old woman on the lap of a former U.S. representative when he was stopped for DWI. The editor almost taunts readers with the info he knows and they don't, and then invites them to use google.

James Vesely of the Seattle Times calls e-commerce the anti-newspaper because it takes money normally given to newsrooms.

Both show a poignancy for times gone by. Both seem are disappointed by things today. Both, I suspect, are really not liking the way the future looks.

(Both via Romenesko.)

Time was, newspapers in markets our size would lose reporters to larger newspapers looking for tenacious reporters and/or wonderfully talented writers. Now, there's been a shift in the marketplace. It's not seismic yet, but it soon will be.

Oh, the big news orgs still look for talented reporters and writers, and while those folks aren't a dime a dozen, there are a lot of them around. But that's no longer enough. Reporters with digital skills have the edge. My evidence:

Amy Dominello, our multi-media reporter since April, moves to a higher paying, bigger market in D.C. to be a multi-media reporter.

Katie Reetz, a features writer and multi-media star, goes to develop multi-media connections with students at Elon. OK, not a larger news org, but still.

Michelle Jarboe, a business writer, moves to the Plain Dealer to write business there. I don't know for a fact that her digital skills were a factor, but if they weren't -- she developed and contributed to two blogs here -- they should have been. (And clearly the PD could use some help.)

When we began emphasizing digital training here, we anticipated just such a talent drain. While I regret losing these folks, I'm proud that we've been able to prepare them for the future. Because the future is here. Anyone still out there -- and the group must be dwindling by now -- who doesn't see the value of learning to post, to link, to record audio and video and to join in the greater conversation is a stegosaurus in trouble.

Maybe a beat reporter could do a way better job if there was a "live" social network connected to the beat, made up of people who know the territory the beat covers, and want the reporting on that beat to be better.

That's Jay Rosen's brilliantly simple idea.

It feels like the future to me.

I wanted us to give it a shot. I'm frustrated and disappointed that we're not on the bus with the 13 participants. We tried. Not surprisingly, Jay was receptive and helpful to us. We just couldn't find the right combination of reporter and beat. We looked at health and medicine, at High Point and at Raleigh, but for various reasons, couldn't make it work by Jay's deadline.

A major issue for us is that we are playing a bit of musical chairs as reporters leave and others move from beat to beat. But that will settle out soon enough.

I'm hopeful that we try this on our own, watching Beatblogging.org from afar and learning as we go. I'm convinced that it would give us an edge in our reporting, improve the reporter and make us a better newspaper. I have in mind a couple other possibilities once the right people get into place. Jay said it's possible that we could join his initiative mid-stream.

So that's two innovation initiatives before us. It should be a busy next several months.

Could Greensboro citizens have gotten potable water from Randleman Reservoir by now to serve us during this drought? Experts say no, but newly elected City Council member Trudy Wade campaigned that city incompetence is the reason we're not drawing Randleman water from our taps.

Allen Johnson dissects her campaign talk and matches it with facts and political reality.

Defeated incumbent Sandy Carmany wishes that Allen had written his column before last week's election. (Taft Wireback did write an article last month about why water wasn't coming from Randleman Reservoir.)

But imagine this unfolding another way, a way that portends the future:

On her blog, Trudy Wade posts her position on the use of Randleman water. Sandy responds with her own position. Allen Williams of the city water department explains the technical process of getting water from a clean lake into homes. Tom Phillips, the city's elected representative on the water authority, explains the political process on getting all the government bodies to agree on the use of the water. Arnold Koonce tells us about High Point's position. Others -- regular people like you and I -- read, ask questions, offer suggestions and learn from following the discussion of experts with information.

Allen's column did some of this, but it is restrained by the one-to-many delivery form which is delivered fresh once a day. Imagine this discussion done in real time in public.

We aren't there, of course. It would require more people to be online, more people with the direct knowledge to graduate from lurkers to contributors. And finally, either fewer trolls or participants with thick skins. (I first thought that it would require candidates who were seeking the best, correct solutions, but they are the least necessary. It is enough that citizens are informed. Presumably they would see through candidates who aren't acting in their best interests.)

Aside from the information citizens would get, but they also would be able to get to know the candidates in a way they couldn't in the newspaper or in television sound bites. You could see how candidates communicate, how they express themselves, whether they deal with the facts, and how open they are to other opinions.

Coincidentally, Dan Gillmor writes a column in the Boston Globe with a similar approach to political debates.

A debate that would unfold online over the course of days, or even weeks and months. Imagine that one candidate takes a position and poses a question. The opponent would answer with a written response of some predetermined length, but with the help of staff, experts, and the general public. Then the first candidate, again with the help of anyone who wants to join the process, would dissect the response and reply with (we'd hope) a truly nuanced update. Continue this process at length -- and repeat it with many other topics.

He recommends it be moderated, and he's probably right.

I doubt enough Greensboro citizens use online this way for this to take off yet. Greensboro public decisionmakers may not be ready for this yet. We certainly missed an opportunity during this municipal election season.

Still, there's nothing preventing us, the newspaper, from taking an issue, recruiting knowledgeable participants to actively contribute, and building an informed discussion that would help make good public policy.

What do you think? You must believe that this, or something like it, is the future. Let's get ahead of the curve.

I'm on a panel this afternoon speaking to the 2007 Conference on Public Administration in Chapel Hill. Here's the first sentence of the description of the topic: Saber-tooth tigers, oil, polar ice caps, and newspaper control of news -- all may be gone soon, if not forgotten. So how does a government handle overwhelming demands for information and participation on the new frontier of journalism?

Well. They got the verb tense wrong. "Newspaper control of news" is long gone.TV saw to that years ago. And you can make a strong argument that it never was. But that's another post.

Here is the list of questions the moderator is going to use to spark discussion, although I have no expectation that we'll need more than No. 2 to do that.

1. We have recently seen high profile conflicts between media and politicians/bureaucrats here in North Carolina. Many of these conflicts center around interpretations of the Public Records Laws. Where do you see these laws and their interpretations going in the future?

2. The blogging world has been referred to as the "fifth estate." This implies a certain level of importance in the balance of government branches and citizens. Do you think blogging has such a substantial role, and if so, is it a healthy or unhealthy influence?

3. Bloggers are sometimes accused of being less subject to laws and ethical restrictions than mainstream media, primarily because they do not have assets at risk. Please comment on this perception.

4. What suggestions would you offer government officials for dealing with inaccurate blog postings?

5. There is some pressure for professional government employees to create and maintain blogs. It may be hoped that this would shorten the time lag in government response to the people on issues. Given that the time lag is often the product of a need to review records laws, etc., what advice would you give to appointed government officials regarding this suggestion?

6. Most newspapers and television stations (according to recent reports have added blogs to their repertoire, including The News & Record. How do you see this merger affecting news coverage?

7. What are the implications, professionally and ethically, of government employees posting information to blogs? Given the ability to make such postings anonymous, an option generally not available in letters to the editor, what impacts might their ability to share inside information have? Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

8. How do you see the speed and anonymity of web-based news ultimately affecting the democratic process?

Most of these questions are the wrong ones, it seems to me, coming at the topic from the wrong angle. As the world of news and information moves from the one-to-many model of mass communication to the two-way model of the Web, then hand-wringing about whether that move is good is irrelevant. It simply is.

I wrote about my initial talking points here. Now that I have the questions, anything else I should add?

The need for greater transparency in government will be a key addition. What I've learned is that when people aren't given full and complete information, they often fill in the blanks on their own, creating a version of reality based on some facts, some assumptions and some biases. It has little to do with "new forms of media," which is the title of the panel. People have always done that. The difference now is that the people have a voice of their own on the Web. As with everything else, some of the voices will be cranky, mean-spirited and off-point. Others will be relevant, insightful and helpful. It is what it is.

What else?

My daughter the younger just asked me if Stephen Colbert's presidential run is serious. This is a child who has been online since she was 10, who reads newspapers only when she's bored, watches TV news less often than that and who seems to know everything about whatever she's interested in, and is now a freshman at UNC.

Of course she knows who Colbert is. She's a bit unsure about who Romney and Thompson are, though. This is also a child of civically engaged parents she saw read the paper every morning and talk politics often.

The Pew Survey described this group early this year: They are somewhat more interested in keeping up with politics and national affairs than were young people a generation ago. Still, only a third say they follow what's going on in government and public affairs "most of the time."

My answer? "Yeah. Absolutely. But I think Jon Stewart is a better candidate."

Monday update: Here's why she asked.

Beau Dure used to work at this newspaper back in the '90s, but I know him better through his comments on this blog than I did when he was here. He's smart and insightful as he shows in these comments reproduced at Journalism Hope. With that intro, you probably aren't surprised that I agree with him.

The bottom line: Newspapers could have done everything "right" -- all the suggestions from this list, minus the things never caught on -- and still found themselves in the situation they're in today. The marketplace is fragmenting. Prime-time network TV is losing viewers. Tower Records is gone. Forty years ago, everyone could name a Beatles song; today, most people don't know any of the songs in the Top 10. We simply have too many options....

As the market fragments, traditional newspapers will decline....But there will be opportunities for good journalism....

So we've established niche media while transforming traditional media - perhaps more slowly than intended -- into something new. We've learned a lot along the way from both successes and failures, both small and spectacular.

Despite what you may read on journalism sites and blogs, many of us do understand the market we're in and the skills we need. Our challenge is to move more quickly understand where the audience is, where it is going and how to serve it.

He mentions his experiences and observations commenting on this blog.

I'm as much a fan of the blogging experiments in Greensboro as the next Online-Newser - probably moreso, since I spent four terrific years at the N&R. But judging from the agenda-driven comments on John Robinson's blog, my old editor in Wilmington probably got better feedback in the steam room at the Y than John is getting online.

I don't know about the feedback at the Y -- my experience is that a pretty good place to talk to the audience -- but he has a point about some comments here. Some do go to all the same places -- usually trashing the paper for one sin or another. Really, it's not all that different from conversations I have with people on the street. The criticism in person is usually more polite, but it can also be equally blunt and mean-spirited.

Other conversations are quite robust, helpful and stimulating -- both in person and on the blog. And they make it worth it.

During the monthly staff meeting today, a reporter asked me about the future of printed newspapers. I gave some sort of rambling answer that wasn't satisfactory. I've always said that it's the journalism that matters, not whether it comes on processed wood pulp or pixels or sound waves. I worry about the future of print in that it is our dominant revenue source right now, but I'm confident that we're growing digital $$ in the meantime. There are a lot of bright people out there working on business models that will keep journalism principles alive and healthy.

But anyway, now, I can be specific and quote a futurist when I answer that question.

From Brian Cubbison:

Futurist and columnist Richard Watson has written a book called "Future Files: A History of the Next 50 Years" .

They will disappear about the same time Google does, but will outlive petrol-engined vehicles, free roads, national currencies, the European Union, Microsoft, the middle class, spam and Rocky films.

Of course, also in about the same time frame, he predicts Cher will be gone...as will futurists.

Meanwhile, the World Association of Newspapers asked 22 experts what the newspaper would look like in 2020.

Two excerpts:

Juan Antonio Giner: Innovation believes in the future of newspapers, but the newspapers of the future will be very different, better and more profitable than ever if they embrace change and innovation without losing the core and soul of our business: journalism.

Rob Curley: Newspapers are going to survive. Will we be doing things the way we’ve always done them? Absolutely not. In the United States, there are two types of newspaper publishers -- those who think the most important part of the word newspaper is 'news' and those who think the most important part of that word is 'paper.' ... We can't be afraid of reaching our audience in new ways. It will be one of the keys to our industry’s successful future.

I think print newspaper reading is generational. As long as boomers are such a driving force in society, newspapers will be fine. But there's no question that digital journalism is the future. And we're working on developing our skills there.