Print Newspapers: Fighting For Their Livelihoods in the Online Age

Perhaps even Editor Andy and his Std-Ex editor cohorts would benefit by taking a look at this

Informative Andy Howell piece in yesterday's Standard-Examiner, highlighting some of the strategies that our home town newspaper is adopting to transform itself into an internet multimedia platform, with the object of remaining relevant and profitable in the 21st century information age. Among other things, editor Andy mentions having been "contacted by a couple of people in the media industry wanting to know why the Standard-Examiner seems to be doing so much better than other newspapers in this economic climate."

Coincidentally, we also received a timely tip from one of our gentle readers yesterday, pointing toward a fine three-part article published Wednesday on one of our online favorites, the Utah Stories blog. Although Editor Andy wasn't specific, we're going to take a wild guess that it was the article's author, Leo Dirr, about whom Andy was referring above. Leo's put together a fine tome, which presents a broad overview of the challenges and difficulties the traditional print media. As an added bonus, Leo features the fruits of a recent Editor Andy interview, providing a brief glimpse into the Std-Ex's new game plan, as it struggles to survive and thrive in an era where the paper and ink format may very well go the way of the buggy whip. At risk of oversimplification, we believe Mr. Howell's below statement sums it all up:

"I think you'll see the Standard progress into an information/marketing company that produces a newspaper, rather than a newspaper that does all these other things on the side," he says.

You can read Mr. Dirr's most excellent three-part article series here:

• Will Newspapers Survive? -- Print journalists are forced to fight for their livelihoods in the Online Age

While we're on the subject of the fate of print newspapers in the online information age, don't miss this morning's Wasatch Rambler column by the way, in which Emerald City journalistic treasure Charlie Trentelman "fights for his livelihood in the online age," and makes a strong case for the preservation of a media business model which would support paid reporters in well staffed newsrooms. We're going to go along with Charlie on this. Frankly, we don't know what we'd do without the vigorous reporting of Ace Reporter Schwebke, and a few other thoroughbred reporters in the Std-Ex stable. Seriously.

And for those readers interested in the whole enchilada, we provide a live link to Mark Potts' extremely interesting Recovering Journalist blogsite, which was referenced by Mr. Dirr in his above article. This site is entirely dedicated to a discussion of traditional media survival in the looming digital information age. Lots of interesting and topical stuff there. Perhaps even Editor Andy and his Std-Ex editor cohorts would benefit by taking a look at the material contained therein.

The floor's open, gentle readers.

You know what to do; do it in our lower comments section.