“As a long-time newspaper guy, I think the chances of my two daughters reading a print edition as they grow older are close to zero,” wrote Outing.

Is this doom and gloom? No, it’s a realistic assessment – most editors and news executives believe online will be the most common platform for their newspaper within 10 years.

Or, as worded by Robin Sloan, currently the manager of new media strategy for Al Gore's Current TV: "A key point is that news will continue to be delivered on many media -- websites, blogs, TV, phones, pamphlet-y things, those little java jackets they have at coffee shops, whatever. It's not about everything going digital and never seeing a molecule of real matter again. But it IS about the death of the monolithic news experience."

Does this mean it’s the end of newspapers? No, it just means newspapers will have to progressively focus on other platforms than print. So how do they achieve this?

“News will be delivered in a multitude of formats. The key idea is that there really won't be a dominant or shared news experience. News and information will flow around us like air,” said Andrew Nachison, co-founder of new media think tank iFOCOS.

First, newspapers must grasp and embrace this notion of ‘flowing news’. They won’t be the news monoliths they used to be, but they can participate in great part, thanks to their already established experience and resources, to the flow of news.

Now, to some more pragmatic answers, though these remain on the conceptual side. One of the main ideas, expressed by a few of the respondents, is that newspapers must become more community-oriented local news aggregators.

Andrew Nachison: “The most successful (newspapers) will re-imagine their roles and will think in terms of connecting and empowering communities, not in terms of controlling and dominating markets.”

Sree Sreenivasan, journalism professor, Columbia University: "Newspapers must remain engaged in doing what they do best: cover their communities.”


Dan Gillmor, founder of Center for Citizen Media: "Offer and aggregate hyper-local and niche news, being guides to the best of what's going on outside their walls, and stop pretending to be oracles."

Craig Newmark, founder, Craigslist. "Start viewing themselves more as a community service and forget about 20-percent profit margins. And start speaking truth to power."

Lastly, Jack Driscoll, former editor of the Boston Globe, offers a list of reforms and solutions. Though these remain editorial and conceptual – they still depend upon strict business and economic factors – this provides a good basic overview of the priorities newspapers need to address, for their own future:

-- Recognize they are a valuable source for news and analysis whether in print or in other vehicles.

-- Stop laying off reporters (not to mention other news personnel) who are more vital to a more-engaged, more-intelligent audience.

--Restore deadlines. The more automated the worse the deadlines? That makes no sense. Surely readers should be able to know how their local team made out by 6 a.m.

--Don't put all your eggs in the online basket but figure out how to parlay the strengths of both vehicles.

-- Do research, of what readers want and need, and of what new technology can do.

-- Use creative approaches to tapping into the talents of readers of all ages in meaningful ways.

-- Stop grousing and start concentrating on being indispensable."

As Steve Outing was collecting these opinions, Rupert Murdoch from News Corporation was having an independent but similar interview with Steve Adler, Business Week's editor.

"It was apparent at that time that while the economy was booming, TV and newspaper revenues were not moving up as they once would have in such an environment. That represented a permanent change in the media landscape, from an economic viewpoint. So we looked elsewhere," said Murdoch about News Corp's venture into MySpace.

Source: Editor & Publisher through paidcontent.org