Poynter Media business analyst Rick Edmonds offers a critique of the latest Newspaper Next 2.0 report, which concludes, among other things, that newspapers must become more entrepreneurial in order to expand their customer base, and stay in the black.

Edmonds is not convinced that newspaper employees can simply morph into “disruptive” web entrepreneurs, noting that “the true disrupters” such as Craig Newmark of CraigsList and Jeff Taylor of Monster are a very different breed of thinker.

The report’s proposals also seem to put “the traditional all-things-to-all-people newspaper model in contemporary digital dress.”

The report demonstrates in a chart (see photo) that news will remain an integral part of the newspaper of the future, but will not be enough to sustain a paper. According to the findings, the pace of change today is unprecedented but not quick enough; newspapers should be “making the leap” beyond news, and venturing into unfamiliar territory like online promotions and e-mail advertising.

Source: The Biz Blog