News: Smarter Than The Next Guy

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about newspapers, news, local blogging, technology and boiled custard. As I am a fan of boiled custard, unloaded (I know, I can only imagine your surprise) that I have had to take some time to think about it.

News is not dead, campers. It’s not. Local news isn’t six-feet under. For old cronies like me, I’m just having to readjust my thinking. And I also have had to come to terms that my technical skills need honing. You know, like immediately.

I’ve also realized that so many people at the top of the news business (print in particular) are still dealing with old standards that no longer exist. Instead of using the tools available and realizing that there has to be a balance between newsroom/tech crews, there are some local papers that are just seeing the dark at the end of the tunnel.

I admit I fall prey to this as well but after one grieves, one has to pick themselves up by the bootstraps. (Note to myself, I assure you.)

Journalists will continue to write and deliver what they love. You don’t go into news without being committed to it. But there are different levels right now that need to be addressed. First of all, social networking service such as Friendfeed and Twitter need to be used by local media and I’m talking from a perspective of rural media as well. The issue for some papers that are not daily, those who oversee from the top must realize, as Chris Davis says so eloquently at the Memphis Flyer.

Best of all, digital newspaper news arrives several times a day, is never soggy, and anybody can get it anywhere in the world without delay.

Newspapers are ready to get out of the tree-killing business and consumers seem to be loving all the new things their phones and mobile devices can do. Of course, the big rub is that the revenue model hasn’t made the jump to hyperspace, though online revenue is growing. In fact, the CA‘s smallish “online only” sector is the only slice of the paper’s financial pie to show growth in the last tough quarter. But everything else is withering.

Davis is dealing with this issue head on. News is delivered several times a day. The way it was done is over. And for those of us not in dailies who do not rely on AP content (or other services for that matter) we have to realize that there is always a new way of doing old things.

So the reinvention begins. Many of us in the news business are understandably concerned everywhere, not just in rural markets. Without the guidance of those who own the papers, we are stuck in a rut that is impossible to get out because, alas, saying “I told you so” in five years doesn’t pay the bills. Bragging rights don’t get the mortgage paid each month.

So many of us are going to have to create our own niches, especially those of us in small markets not owned by conglomerates, who are also suffering. The difference: No buyout packages, no severance, nothing.

And what is the answer?

These are the questions on my mind this morning. I’m feeling more positive about our future although I do see 2009 as a lean time for many of us.

We just have to be smarter than the next guy. That the only thing I can come up with until the next question rears its head.