News Quest

Should Newspapers Stop Being Newspapers?

I think the news industry is fogetting weh at htey manufacture, NEWS. They are not in the business of selling papers, that is simply the delivery vehicle.
The news industry needs to produce the best news possible focused at the local market (where in most cases they truly have a monopoly on news content - ever try getting local high scholl sports news from the NY Times or AP or USA Today, etc) The newpapers have a huge moat around that local market. They need to recognize this adn then charge for it - that's right, charge for it because there are few if any alternatives for the consumer to get the product anywhere else adn wehn push comes to shove, they'll pay, jsut as soon as the industry stops givign it awya for free on the internet. The challenge is to build a model that is economically viable adn reasonable priced. If they can strike this balance then journalist will get paid for producing news, the news company can survie adn the ad dollars will continue to be paid because of that local focus that is now broadly purchased.