Recently in Newspapers Category

Mindy McAdams says there's not much excuse for a journalist not having an online presence.

But more important, do you know how to put yourself out there with your blog? Do you link to and comment on other blogs? Do you use your RSS reader and Delicious links as tools to widen your personal sphere of contacts and influence? Ah. That's what I'm talking about.

And this from Terry Heaton. who says it's critical for journalists to develop their personal brand:

Let's face it; the day is coming when independent journalists will offer their goods and services to media companies, instead of the companies actually employing them. This is already happening on a small scale, but I expect it will increase as fiscal pressures squeeze the life out of media companies. Hard-working independent contractors can make good money, and it will cost media companies less to purchase their work.

Comedian Jon Stewart to journalists:

"Why do I take this more seriously than you?"

There's more.

Media consultant Vin Crosbie has created a stir with a thought-provoking two-of-three-parts on the transformation of the newspaper industry.

The short take:

More than half of the 1,439 daily newspapers in the United States won't exist in print, e-paper, or Web site formats by the end of next decade. They will go out of business. The few national dailies -- namely USA Today, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal -- will have diminished but continuing existences via the Web and e-paper, but not in print. The first dailies to expire will be the regional dailies, which have already begun to implode. Those plus a very many smaller dailies, most of whose circulations are steadily evaporating, will decline to levels at which they will no longer be economically viable to publish daily. Further layoffs of staffs by those newspapers' companies cannot avoid this fate - not so long as daily circulations and readerships continually and increasingly decline. (Layoffs are becoming little more than the remedy of bleeding that was used in attempts to cure ill patients during the 18th Century and cannot restore the industry's health.)

But this is one not to skip the long version.

Vin's two pieces so far:

Transforming American Newspapers (Part 1)

Transforming American Newspapers (Part 2)

And the react:

Amy Gahran in Poyntor's E-Media Tidbits: Looking Past the Death of Newspapers

Mark Hamilton's Notes of a Teacher: Watching the demise of the newspaper

Weblog: Opinion: Is the US newspaper situation really that bad?

Prosthetic Device: Why Newspapers are Dying

Jay Small: Link bucket: Catching up

Thoughs of Nigel: Newspapers not in a cyclical crisis but a grave one with fundemental changes happening

Leonard Witt's PJNet: Vin Crosbie on the Imminent Death of Newspapers

If the newspapers won't survive (a more than slightly scary thought to someone who has spent an adult lifetime in the business), will the businesses that ran them evolve into something else or merely die as Crosbie suggests?

A question from "Glenn in Knoxville" leads "Uncle Jay" to explain why so many reporters (some 15,000) are covering the Democratic National Convention.

Ah, uh, well, it might explain a few things about newspaper management.

While I was out of town yesterday, the newsroom at the Knoxville News Sentinel was doing an outstanding job of breaking news coverage of a shooting at a Knoxville high school. Complete coverage is here.

Breaking text, photos, videos, SMS alerts, email and Twittering. A photo gallery of the breaking news and two breaking news videos were among our top 10 "stories" yesterday.

It was a large scale effort to be best and first. The culture does change!

Jason Preston:

The AP is poised to flip the age-old relationship of content provider and distributor. Inside ten years, the AP will control the distribution path to the largest possible audience, and will be offering member papers a kickback on all ads served against its articles.

Papers would be insane not to take that deal.

With some additional thoughts from Steve Yelvington.

"What's long held back the newspaper industry and gotten it in the current mess has been holding back online innovation that might impact the legacy product (print). The kind of serious innovation that might have avoided the turmoil we're now seeing among newspapers (especially larger metros like the Inquirer) could only take place with an attitude of "Let's completely forget about the print edition and just try to build the best damn online service possible."

"But the industry didn't do that, for the most part, instead settling for incremental innovation that wouldn't upset things too much on the legacy side. That's exactly the thinking that's in this Inquirer memo."

-- Steve Outing responding to a memo by the Philadelphia Inquirer's managing editor about what content will be held for print.

Jeff Jarvis had a quick reaction as well to the memo.

All the arguments about the future of newspapers in one post.

Charley Stough's BONG Bull is back.

Mindy McAdams of Teaching Online Journalism becomes enamored with the Chattanooga Times Free-Press while on vacation.