Great observations on the newspaper business

So this doesnt have much to do with printing, at least directly, but Im making myself a few allowances on a Friday afternoon heading into a holiday weekend.

Mike Masnick, in his usual incisive manner, has a great post at Techdirt well worth my readers while, in my opinion. He summarizes and analyzes the comments from a recent Charlie Rose show and its newspaper management panel in "WSJ Editor Claims Google Devalues Everything".

As those paying attention know, the long decline in newspaper readership has long been exacerbated by competing media forms, the latest being the Internet. And more recently the business is suffering, like most media businesses, from an overall decline in advertising correlated directly with the economic slowdown. But as Masnick points out, the opportunities granted by the Web and the perceived demon Google are enormous, and its up to the industry, at least those in the industry who plan to survive, to figure it out.

Where does this relate to print? It seems even still the mindset of too many of those in the business is stuck with the model of literally, the News-Paper business. "If it aint printed (centrally I might add), it aint a newspaper and we cant sell it."

Thanks, Mike, for the excellent thoughts!