I write a good deal about newspapers and how that business is changing. I do so because there’s a big newspaper close to home, Newsday, that has great potential, but, as is the case with many papers, is nervous about real change.
What paper newspapers don’t seem to understand is that their online properties are really poised to win the news and local information war. Why? Because they have the content and the ability to deliver it (fact-checked) in near real time across a lot of media platforms: video, audio, pictures, feeds, and written word.
I haven’t looked behind Newsday’s curtain and know there are smart people with money doing innovative things, but at the end of the day I think they’ll take the paper paper, turn it into flash and HTML, and debate the monetization issue. Along with News Corp., Cablevision (owner of Newsday) is one of the few companies with the resources and footprint to reinvent the online news business…but they need to lose the fear and think different. In 10 years online news sites will be the sites of choice. Peace!