I agree, and it’s worse than even a matter of bias on another level:
I’ve seen the New York Times biased blather dissected and debunked the night before on website discussion board before it shows up in dead tree form as a page one article in our American Statesman. Fact-deficient out-dated bias. And the fact that most of such articles are reprints from AP, NYT etc. that you can get from an RSS feed bespeaks of the hollowing out of real journalism in the newsroom.

Harrumph, who needs it? My wife insists on the paper because of the coupons. I have a business plan in my hip pocket that would eviscerate even that excuse. One of these days, I or someone like me will execute on it.

I agree the Newspaper Next report may be a bit mild and a bit late to preserve a declining business with an excessive cost structure. But I don’t think it is too late for companies to focus on new business opportunities to serve customers and non-customers. (The cost structure will have to change dramatically.)

I think you overlooked some important elements in the Newspaper Next report, in that it raises some the right questions newspaper managers and owners should deal with immediately:

*Are there under-served customers?
*What are the information jobs that people are trying to get done?
*How can we rapidly create new services?

It is also important to recognize that the disruption framework and the team that worked on the report are not lightweights. This is a well-thought and tested-approach that has worked in many industries. Whether newspapers follow through is not clear. But I do believe that they have been given good ammo.

Another approach to create disruptive new services is to ask these questions:
*If we were to create a new company to serve customers in 6-12 months, what would the service offering and what would be the right structure to deliver it?
*What are the attributes of news services that customers value and pay for today?
*What are the growing news and information problems that customers seem to have and how can we solve them?

I think the N2 report and a creative, business-minded approach that looks at what customers do and pay for, can pay off. Sorry, I am an optimist.

More thoughts on the decline of mainstream media:

http://www.ondisruption.com/my_weblog/media_meltdown/index.html

There are two parts to this: Paper, and Beyond Paper. For a lot of folks here, the short answer to saving the newspaper is: Don’t be one. Become something else. That’s Part Two. But if you’re going to print on paper at all, let’s ask, Why, and For whom, and What’s worth doing on paper?

Here are 10 revolutionary things I’d like to see a newspaper try, on paper:

1. Explode your newspaper into different publications for different people, instead of trying to be everything for the downtown clubgoer who doesn’t want stock listings and sports agate.

2. Instead of trying to attract online users to paper, create the best Web sites you can for those people and publish “The Traditional Newspaper for Traditonal People” (and here’s the really radical part) with no regard for whether a story has been “out all day” online or on TV. But print lots of health news so these people will live as long as possible.

3. Go completely local and insert The Christian Science Monitor for your national and world news.

4. Go completely online except for the Sunday paper with all those ads.

5. Instead of continuing the industry’s grim drumbeat of a marketing message that says, “We’re charging you more and we keep giving you less,” take those things you’ve been taking away, like stocks and TV listings, and bundle them. They’re expensive, so charge more to those readers who must have it. This sends a message of premium value, instead of a message of shriveling up.

6. Solve the jump problem, not necessarily by mangling and chopping up stories, but by jumping only when absolutely necessary and always to the next right-hand page for easy flipping back and forth. If you can’t solve the jump problem, you can’t solve the paper problem.

7. If you’re going to have an editorial page at all, instead of navel-gazers employ reporters to report on real people’s opinions. I have a theory on why newsrooms don’t do a very good job of covering protests, but that’s for another time.

8. If you’re going to print on paper, make it worthwhile. Nobody redesigns a newspaper to run more comics, or to make them bigger, but why not? You’re paying a lot of money for the newsprint, so don’t make it a dismal, difficult reading experience. What works best on paper? Great stories, powerful photos and comics you don’t have to squint for.

9. Create a personal mix-and-match section for the person who wants more women’s sports, health reports and news from Africa, and for the person who wants more auto racing, gardening, and news from the Mideast.

10. Tell stories in new ways, with databases, Google maps or investigative comic books.

Some people will say that you can’t be revolutionary if you’re still presenting the news on the same old paper, but that’s for Part Two: Beyond Paper.

Internet: 39
Online: 115
Video: 11

Zero occurences of these three words:

Internet
Online
Video

How can they discuss “next” and not mention the Internet?

So right you are! I used to subscribe to a local newspaper … no more in recent years! Why? Because I couldn’t get the real, factual news. I could get left-wing biased reporting where only the facts that fit the paper’s political agenda were reported, with the facts that didn’t, tossed in the trash. I don’t want, nor will I pay, for propaganda. I can’t subscribe to any local newspaper that truly strives to print the truth regardless of the political implications, because there aren’t any newspapers that do that anymore. Almost all newspapers subscribe to such organizations as AP (Associated Phables) and al-Reuters, so the chances of getting the real scoop on international events is almost impossible as well. That’s why I’m up here on the web. In the words of Dragnet’s Sgt. Joe Friday … “I just want the facts, sir, just the facts”

They have a business reporter that might as well be with the IWW, no one that knows military affairs in a state with heavy defense industries, and only the sports section truly publishes facts.

Yet there are stories on local news that you know have really great stuff just underneath (scandal perhaps, or just plain facts) that the reporters can’t be bothered to check out.

The lack of basic reporting is what will kill the newspaper, not bias. You can always disregard the opinion part, but not if no facts are reported. A great example is a local battle to retain Air National Guard units in the state. The current wing of A-10 Attack Fighters is being consolidated in Massachusetts. The governor and legislative leaders all are trying to take credit for gaining a unit of small transports. No where was there any photos of the planes, description of their missions or rationale for basing them here. All this info could have been obtained in a few minutes from the local public affairs officer with the guard. Sheer laziness.

http://billhobbs.com/2006/10/lets_give_them_something_to_ta_1.html

Can you teach an old dog new tricks this late in the game? Will the newspaper industry survive into the future? Will there be newspapers in 20, 30 years? I believe they are heading for complete implosion before any relevant change will occur.

Today though I argue that: Look, this project will make money, time and resources available at newspapers for innovation. Smart folks in newsrooms will jump in and turn that to projects that make sense for good journalism, civic life and community building.

Newspapers needed something to get them started. This might be it. Most importantly, built into it is finding innovative ways to grow an innovative culture, which could include everything you want.