Rich Gordon, like most journalists, is concerned about the newspaper industry's ability to deal with the rapidly changing media landscape. Comparing it to the American car industry which has been on a gradual decline for thirty years, Gordon says, "The newspaper industry doesn't have thirty years. It desparately needs to find new business models for electronic distribution that will generate the revenue needed to support the cost of creating content.

"The components of a "new newspaper online strategy are becoming clear:

• Create new content in niches (such as business and sports) where the cost already can be supported by online advertising.
• Find ways to enlist non-journalists (who can be paid little or nothing) as content creators -- or acquire sites that do this, as The New York Times did when it purchased About.com.
• Think of the Web not as a place to build a new destination, but, instead, use it to solve the "old" media world's biggest content dilemma: the fact that many people who would value any particular piece of content never become aware that it exists. This means embracing RSS, seeking out blog links, submitting articles to Google Base, syndicating content to other sites, optimizing content for search engines (I still see many stories where the HTML title is something like "Newspaper Name: Local News" instead of the headline), delivering content to mobile platforms, etc.
• Invest in technologies that enable targeting of ads based on content, demographics and user behavior.
• Enable businesses to buy online ads themselves instead of going through sales representatives -- and take the time needed to train local merchants how to use these tools effectively.
• Install Web analytics and ad-management systems that enable advertising managers to identify clusters of content (or clusters of users) that can attract the highest possible prices on a CPM basis.
• Hire people who can sell online advertising effectively -- as a separate buy, rather than bundled with print ads."

Cheers to Robb Montgomery at Visual Editors for the tip.

Source: Poynter