I Read the (Rocky Mountain) News Today, Oh Boy

The Rocky Mountain News will be publishing its last edition tomorrow, leaving Denver as a one (major) newspaper town. And, while I�m not predicting this, with the Denver Post having tremendous difficulties as well, it�s not inconceivable to think that 12-18 months down the road Denver could be a zero newspaper town. The demise of The Rocky should presumably help the Post short term, with additional advertisers and subscribers probably coming their way, but that may not be enough to overcome the recession and their current business model.

This is sad in so many ways, not the least of which is that I believe newspapers (not necessarily the format, but the concept) are critical to a democracy. And I felt that The Rocky was doing better than most newspapers at trying to incorporate the web into their operation (obviously not profitably, though). It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out here in Colorado.

In the meantime, this spurs some questions for me. I am not particularly knowledgeable about newspapers or their business model, so I can�t really comment on that. But I wonder what this means for K-12 education, particularly here in Colorado.

What should this mean for how we teach students here in Colorado?

How does this affect where and how they find news information, and how do we as educators help them do that?

Will teachers in Colorado make the connection to their own classroom practice? Both in terms of the way publishing and audience is changing, but also in terms of how the status quo is not guaranteed to continue � and that outdated models can and will be replaced.

And, in light of Kathleen Bates Yancey�s (and the NCTE�s) call for a reexamination of writing in the 21st century, how will all teachers (not just Language Arts teachers) respond?

Perhaps most important, seen historically this 21st century writing marks the beginning of a new era in literacy, a period we might call the Age of Composition, a period where composers become composers not through direct and formal instruction alone (if at all), but rather through what we might call an extracurricular social co-apprenticeship.

NCTE is calling for teachers and students to embrace writing �authentic texts in informal, collaborative contexts� where there �isn�t a hierarchy of expert-apprentice, but rather a peer co-apprenticeship in which communicative knowledge is freely exchanged.�

Does this describe your classroom?

We have to move beyond a pyramid-like, sequential model of literacy development in which print literacy comes first and digital literacy comes second and networked literacy practices, if they come at all, come third and last.

How are you developing not only print, but digital and network literacy practices in your classroom?

Yancey�s article helps us �understand an increasingly important role for writing: to foster a new kind of citizenship.� In an age when newspapers are failing (at least in a business sense), this is going to be critical not only for our students, but for our democracy.

We need to become serious about helping students becomes citizen composers instead of good test takers.

Are your students on their way to becoming citizen composers?

Your thoughts?

Update 2-27-09: The Rocky has a "Final Edition" video up, I'm embedding it below. Also, John Temple has an article where he tries to explain some of the economics of why Denver can't support two papers.



Final Edition from Matthew Roberts on Vimeo.

Tweeting a Funeral?

Just a quick post to pass along this story from the Rocky Mountain News:

That feeling of being in a strange new land is a common one for many journalists today.

We're doing things that take us to places that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. And sometimes when we arrive, we find our actions have conjured up their own set of troubles.

That was the case this week when one of our reporters was assigned to cover the funeral of the 3-year-old boy killed after two vehicles collided and crashed into an Aurora ice cream store where he was sitting.

I don't need to tell you that the story of three deaths at the hands of a driver who never should have been behind the wheel blew up into a major topic of conversation for the metro area and touched the hearts of many.

As is our custom, we asked the parents of Marten Kudlis whether we could cover his funeral. To be clear: We never enter funeral services to report on them without the family's permission. Period.

What was different in this case was that a reporter sent live updates via text message from his phone to our Web site during the service. He did so using a program called Twitter.

My initial reaction was pretty negative (as apparently many reactions were). But John Temple, the editor of the Rocky Mountain News, added this:

Most of us couldn't attend the service. But that doesn't mean we don't empathize with the family and don't want to join in their mourning in some way. Marten was one family's son before he died. But because of the way he died, his loss was felt by thousands.

One way for a news organization to help a community connect is to send information live from the service, just as we do from events ranging from political conventions to road closings to concerts and parties. We don't have to wait to publish in the next day's paper anymore. TV and radio don't wait, and people seem to value that.

While I still don't think I would've made the choice to tweet from a funeral, it does raise some interesting questions regarding the "public-ness" of our lives, the immediacy that technology provides, and the ability of that technology to connect a community. I also like how he allows that they are going to make mistakes:

We must learn to use the new tools at our disposal. Yes, there are going to be times we make mistakes, just as we do in our newspaper.

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try something. It means we need to learn to do it well. That is our mission.

I think those five sentences apply just as well to education.

Shift Happens Updated Statistic of the Day

According to today's Rocky Mountain News, citing the upcoming Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2009, Table 644:

4: Median number of years workers have been with their current employer.

The statistic in the original version was 5 years. Looks like things are still shifting.

Texting, tapping, clicking, tweeting, filming: The Rocky Covers the DNC

I've written several times before about how I think one of my local newspapers, the Rocky Mountain News, seems to be doing a fairly decent job trying to transition a traditional newspaper into the digital age. The first part of the title of this post is the headline for John Temple's article from Saturday's paper on covering the convention:

For Sen. Barack Obama, this could be the pivotal week of his long campaign.

We hope the same holds true for the Rocky in what has been a long journey from being just a newspaper to becoming a live source of news and information.

For the first time in planning for a major news event - and we've prepared in the past for everything from the pope's visit for World Youth Day to the Summit of the Eight - our focus has been first on what we would do on the Web, on how readers would experience our work on their computers and cell phones.

I find that an interesting choice of words, "just a newspaper." And while it makes perfect sense, I also find it interesting how they are acknowledging that they are producing for the Web first, and the paper second. And given schools' almost universal ban on cell phones in the classroom, it will be interesting to see how policy clashes with practice if major news organizations start producing for the cell phone first.

For us, the change is exciting. But it's also challenging. It's required many of us to learn new skills. We've been training for months, testing our new approaches to make sure we're ready to give you something different, something you'll value not just in the morning when your paper lands on your doorstep, but all through the day and night.

The Rocky will have about 150 journalists on the street covering every aspect of the convention. Their work will be featured on RockyMountainNews.com and on our mobile Web site, TheRocky.com. If you want to follow what they're reporting, you can sign up to receive their Twitter Tweets by going to RockyMountain News.com/twitter. If you want to see what's going on all over Denver, you'll be able to watch their video clips and see their still photos posted almost instantly on our Web site. If you want to comment on our Web site about what's happening, you'll be able to do that, too.

It's going to be a rich stream of content that we'll organize for you in real time to keep you atop everything from what the candidate is doing to which celebrities are in the Mile High City.

So a newspaper is going to be tweeting the convention.

The Rocky Mountain News uses Twitter in several different ways. Each reporter has a Twitter account they use to communicate breaking news from the field. When you see a Twitter feed embedded with a story, those updates are live and immediate. The Rocky also has Twitter accounts that act as news feeds.

If you go to their DNC page you'll see their embedded live twitter feed.

And posting videos. And allowing - and encouraging - comments. And providing a "stream" of content.

We'll have more people with cameras on the streets than any other news organization, from reporters with cell phone video cameras to sophisticated, award-winning videographers. Our goal is to immerse you in the scene.

In the past, we've published instant books to commemorate the most dramatic events in this city. Well, this time we're going to produce something we'll make available to a global audience - an instant multimedia retelling of the events of the week. Working in collaboration with MediaStorm, an Emmy Award-winning multimedia documentary company, the Rocky will have on its site next Saturday what we hope will be the definitive interactive account of an event that will be talked about for generations.

Their goal is to "immerse" us, and then they'll provide an "instant multimedia retelling" of the events of the week that they're going to make available to a "global audience." (Okay, could that have been written by an edublogger?)

Now, contrast all that with what's happening in many classrooms around the country this week. Anyone else see a disconnect? I'll close with John Temple's last paragraph (emphasis added by me):

You won't be able to be everywhere this week. We will be. I hope you'll join us.

Entrants Must Be 18 or Older?

The Rocky Mountain News is beginning an interesting series titled, "A Dozen on Denver: Stories to Celebrate the City at 150." John Temple, the Publisher, writes:

While I love great journalistic storytelling, I've got to admit that fiction has a special power to tell us truths about ourselves and our society that it is difficult for even the best journalism to touch. That is why when I began to consider how the Rocky Mountain News should celebrate the 150th anniversary of the city of Denver and of the newspaper itself, I was drawn to the idea of enlisting Colorado authors to mark the two occasions.

Too often when newspapers observe such events they spend all their time looking back at their own work over the years. Readers see nothing new.

Why not, instead, celebrate the cultural richness of our community by giving some of its most creative individuals a platform to share their work with a huge audience? Why not leave behind for future generations a new set of stories casting light on how we reached this day?

. . . The authors' stories cover the period from the 1860s to the present. And all have at least one thing in common: Larimer Street, the city's oldest, is at least mentioned.

But to reach a dozen, we're looking for one more fiction writer.

. . . Now we're holding an open competition to find the best story set anytime in Denver's future

So far, so good. This sounds like a really interesting idea and I was already composing this blog post and planning on sharing it with my Language Arts and Social Studies teachers. I was hoping that perhaps some of our students would not only read the series, be exposed to some great writing, and learn some Colorado history, but would also submit a story. After all, we have some very talented writers at our school and, since this is about their future, I figured some of them might have some interesting takes on the matter.

But then in the sidebar that describes the details of the contest I read this:

Entrants must be 18 or older.

Why? Why must they be 18 or older? What exactly is it about this concept that requires the author to be at least 18? The only possible reason I can think of is that they're offering prize money, and perhaps there's a legal issue surrounding that. If so, then surely they could've found a way around that if they had really wanted to.

Now, before y'all complain that I should just ask them why, I did. This was published in last Saturday's paper, and that afternoon I emailed the address that they said entries should be submitted to. Then I waited. I realize that they probably get a lot of emails, but after a week with no response I decided to go ahead and post this. Perhaps someone connected with the paper can find out and leave a comment, or perhaps some of you might also try emailing them and asking why. (Or leave a comment, which I just belatedly did, although it does require creating an account.)

But it seems to me that even if there is a legal reason, the paper could at least run a parallel contest for those "under 18" that they apparently aren't interested in for their main contest. Because this seems like not only a great learning opportunity for our students, but a perfect opportunity for the Rocky Mountain News to, oh, I don't know, actually try to increase their readership by appealing to a demographic that is currently not very interested in their product. I've written before about how I think the Rocky Mountain News and John Temple in particular seem to have a better handle than most on how to transition their newspaper into the digital age, but I think they missed it on this one.

I think I'll still suggest to my Language Arts and Social Studies folks that they share this series with their students, and encourage the students to write their own story to "celebrate the city of Denver," even if we have to publish it ourselves, since The Rocky doesn't appear to be interested in their voices.

The Future of the Newspaper

I had the pleasure of listening to John Temple, editor, publisher and president of the Rocky Mountain News speak to some of our Journalism students last week. I�ve written about Mr. Temple and the Rocky a few times before (here and here). He�s an editor that seems to be doing some interesting things with a newspaper in this new media landscape, so I was very interested to hear what he had to say.

The topic he presented on to our students was basically the future of the newspaper (as he currently sees it). I took fairly decent notes, so this will sort of be a �delayed live blog� with a few occasional thoughts from me added in. His session was very interactive with the students, asking them questions and then replying to those, so this will jump around a little (just so everyone�s clear that he�s not disorganized � he was just reacting to their questions).

My notes:

Temple references NPR story he heard this morning on music magazines going out of business.

I actually heard the same story on the way in that morning.

Music is not dying, but business model is dying.

Ask students where they get their music � lots of sources, but few purchase CD�s.

80% of newspaper�s revenue from ads. Can a newspaper survive in this era? Will newspapers be around?

Student brings up reliability issue � that the newspaper is checked. Temple talks about Wikipedia � he uses it all the time.

References study about reliability as compared to Encyclopedia Britannica

He's a big fan of the Internet � self policing mechanism is fascinating. Refining what the truth is.

RMN won�t allow anyone to use Wikipedia as source for article because no authority, but they use it to find other sources that are more primary about a topic � start at Wikipedia, go further.

Boy, does that sound familiar. If the RMN starts at Wikipedia and then goes further, why do schools try to block or ban it?

Here�s the dilemma � most of the news on the Internet � where does the info come from? Taking content from newspapers, AP, Reuters � here comes the problem, you don�t want to read a newspaper, newspaper goes out of business, where does the news come from?

Hmm, I get what he's saying and agree to a certain extent, but I think at least some of the news these days comes from "the people" as opposed to the professionals. I think we're just starting to see that grow, so he might be overstating the case a little.

I (his newspaper) can�t survive without readers and advertisers. About 450 journalists at the 2 Denver newspapers. What if revenue is 1/10 of what it is today � then 45 journalists. Are 45 people enough to give you the info you want to know?

Maybe instead of large news organizations like RMN and Denver Post, lots of specialty organizations linked together in some way

Student asks if that�s inefficient � have to go too many places. Temple talks about aggregating content.

What if I get compensated on number of people that look at my story. Smart people all over the world trying to figure this out.

His big worry is reliability � we all want information we can trust, and if we don�t have a big organization � he�s worried about the future of journalism.

I wonder about this as well. But I wonder if it's a question of the future of journalism, or the future of the business of journalism? Are they one and the same?

Mentions voting in November � where are you going to get the info to help you vote. Journalism is independent (vs. candidates� website)

Wanted to ask whether he thought the charge that journalists were going too easy on Obama was accurate, but didn't.

Student asks what if the newspapers change to online � totally.

Temple thinks that�s largely what�s going to happen, reduce their costs.

Talks about printing plant � we are a massive manufacturing company � 450,000 a day, stick in a plastic bag, massive distribution company � that�s super expensive. They send someone to every street in the metro area every day � think about that.

If they distribute it over the Internet it's essentially for free � a lot, lot cheaper. They'll lose all the subscription money � but that's only 20% of revenue, offset by cost savings. They use $70 million dollars worth of paper a year.

That's a lot of paper. Now why did I just think of Will?

Transition period � grandparents need a newspaper, but younger generation may not.

On Sundays � not as busy, you can read the paper.

What about if the future news organization that looks like:
On Sunday get a really nice paper.
Then during the week � it's all on the Internet, but then special, high quality print publications for certain audiences: preps publication one day a week, entertainment magazine once a week, sports a couple of times � small newspapers, really high quality.

References craigslist, ebay, monster vs. classifieds in newspaper � it�s a given that the classifieds have moved online � very specific needs/searches. Look at today (Tuesday) � look at size of classified section � maybe 10 pages � not big enough anymore to be really meaningful. Around 1999 about 5 million classified ads a year at RMN, intense marketplace, nothing to compete with them.

We don�t know what the model is going to look like, but we know we can�t afford to keep printing like we do now. He sees the Internet as the center. Paper is not going away � people like print publications, but may not come to you the same way (may be higher quality, but less of it - as in specialty publications mentioned previously)

Mentions YourHub � anybody can share information, starts on the web � post photos, stories, listings, etc. � then published to print � but they select what they publish to print � he likes that model for the future.

Interesting - using "citizens" as their story/data gathering mechanism, then they sort/select/make decisions on what rises to the top.

He�s talked about this before in his column � that they are really changing the way they do things at the Rocky � starts on the web, then to print � readers of the web become their editors. Used to be somebody would point out an error and they would print a small correction a day or two later, now the error is caught on the web, before it goes to print.

Everything will start on the web, then print will have many smaller specialty areas.

New printing technology allows them to print really quickly small batches of publications, new presses allow for micro-jobs.

This is long tail stuff, niche �programming� and marketing.

Tremendous amount of micro-publishing coming out of big web database. Can do a run of 1,000 and it would be economical, wasn't with the old presses.

Think about: Is the value in the newspaper the paper, or is the value the independent, authoritative, verifiable reporting.

Ahh, I think that's the heart of the matter. Where does the value reside? I think that question resonates for me in regards to schools. Where does our value reside?

If it�s the reliability, how can you translate that to this era � the digital world?

Talks about avatars � here�s my personality � I like basketball, wine, politics � will be out there working for me on the web gathering stuff for me.

He�s using the term �avatar� more as a personal digital assistant type concept. He�s also talking about deep personalization.

Student questions whether we are too dependent on technology, won�t be able to think for ourselves.

Temple mentions Redblueamerica. Always two views � get the other side. Mentions stumbleupon � it�s driving traffic to redblueamerica � he finds that fascinating.

I can tell he�s really thinking hard about how this all fits together, how to leverage sites like stumbleupon.

Embrace change find out where it takes you. It will make people smarter.

There�s a lull in the questions, so I ask my question, something along the lines of: You�re talking about deep personalization in your product, meeting the individual needs of your customers, utilizing technology to facilitate that. So what lesson does that hold for schools and educators? What should we be doing?

Big challenge for educators � he�s not obliged to provide building blocks to grow kids like we do � to prepare kids to be successful when you leave here, independent, critically think and learn as you go.

Big problem for educators � talking about moving from school to school, how do they connect � argues somewhat for standardization across schools. Schools need a spine that�s very structured, but individualize from there . . .

I can tell he�s not satisfied with his answer, but he moves on to another question. I hope I�ve spurred him to think a little bit more about this. I can tell he�s intrigued by this and hasn�t made the connection between the disruption in his business caused by technology and the network and a possible similar disruption in education.

This generation is bright, doesn�t agree with �those kids today� � you can do things today that would�ve been impossible when he was growing up.

He asks the students � what�s the media world going to look like? What do you use your portable device for?

Answer: everything

Redblueamerica.com is not located anywhere � distributed, folks are not located in the same place geographically � they do everything on Skype.

RMN is a broadcaster today � they produce video, stream video, audio. Traditional TV broadcasters are being eroded just like newspapers. Sees a big database of video and you choose which clips and segments you want to watch. Talks about all of us being news/video producers � but we�re going to need help because it�s splintered, he�ll bring it together somehow.

Larger trend � power being taken from the big companies and being put in your hands � as consumer and creator, playing field has been leveled and we�re all participating in it. But it�s really noisy, no one is organizing it, how do you find things of value, that�s why Google is so valuable right now � they�re doing it somewhat. Google is putting advertisers together with viewers, that�s the traditional role of newspaper.

So how does the Rocky compete with Google?

End of notes.

So, that�s pretty scattered and since it was over a week ago I�ve lost some of my usual brilliant thoughts I had at the time, but hopefully it�s of interest. I walked Mr. Temple out and asked if he would consider coming back and talking to our teachers about the same topic and he seemed interested, but also said his schedule was pretty full. I have an email in to his secretary about trying to get him back out here, we�ll see what happens.

All in all, I still think Mr. Temple and the Rocky have some pretty good insights into how to transform the newspaper business to the digital age � we�ll have to wait and see how successful they are making the transition. I know I�m asking for too much here, but I�m really hoping that my question will spur him to think some more about the impact this could � or should � have on education.

It's a Different Era

I continue to find the Rocky Mountain News�s approach to the read/write web very interesting. Today�s paper was a case in point. John Temple�s column (he�s the Publisher and sporadically blogs himself) talks about their version of �live blogging.�

Our Washington correspondent, M.E. Sprengelmeyer, had the idea to plant himself in the middle of the stream of candidates flowing through the first state to vote in the first presidential nominating contest. His goal would be to chronicle what it takes to land on the podium at the Democratic National Convention in Denver or the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis.

. . . M.E. arrived in Iowa on Easter Sunday and has been a writing fool ever since . . . The guy has written more than 160,000 words on his blog and more than 130 newspaper stories since he arrived in Iowa. The Des Moines Register was so taken with his approach that it wrote a story about him.

. . . We've experimented with live blogging on major news stories before, such as the excellent work by Jeff Smith, David Milstead and Sara Burnett on the trial of former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio. The goal with M.E.'s blog was to go even farther, making it clear that the blog was the center of what we were doing.

The result is not just that the Rocky has provided, in my view, a perspective on Iowa and the presidential race worth paying attention to. It's also that we're going to approach other major stories in a similar way, starting with the Colorado legislative session beginning next week.

Traditionally, we've had one reporter cover the House and another the Senate. This year, we're going to have one reporter blog throughout the day, under the direction of a seasoned political editor, Jim Martin. Some of the accounts from the blog will be edited for the next day's paper, just the way we have with some of M.E.'s blog postings. The other full-time legislative reporter will focus on providing more depth and insight into the goings-on under the dome.

In addition, we'll also be sending knowledgeable beat reporters to the Capitol to report on stories falling into their area of expertise. So you'll likely hear from our environmental reporter or energy reporter and many others as issues on their beats arise. Developments they cover will make their way onto the blog before they're published in the paper.

On another, sadder note, the lead story in the Rocky this morning was about Major Andrew Olmsted, who was killed in Iraq on Thursday. Major Olmsted had been blogging for the Rocky since May (when he was in training) and since July from Iraq. (Update: His full last post posted posthumously on his blog.)

His goal was to share his front-line experiences with the American people.

The Rocky has also had YourHub for quite some time and I just discovered an offshoot of that titled YourSpace:

Welcome to Your Space. In this section you can submit photos of your baby, pet, or your latest vacation. It's also a place where you share news about your community through our partnership with YourHub.com.

We encourage you to have fun. That's why we give you the chance to vote on your favorite photos submitted by RockyMountainNews.com visitors. This is just the first step in what we hope becomes a major part of this Web site.

Have suggestions about what you want to see in this area? Send us a message at talktous@RockyMountainNews.com

At the end of Temple�s column he talks about sharing stories with two other papers in Colorado, but then says the following � which I think applies to the newspaper�s foray onto the web as well:

It's a different era. When editors from these papers sat down with us to discuss whether it would benefit their readers more if they shared stories and photographs than if they kept them to themselves, the answer seemed obvious . . . If we help one another, we actually help our readers.

I do have one suggestion for Mr. Temple � the online version of his column didn�t link to the different blogs he mentions (and the print version didn�t include links either). That seems like an obvious thing to add. (Back Roads to the White House and the Nacchio Trial are available, they apparently don�t have the link up yet for Live from the Colorado Legislature.)

I will continue to watch the Rocky with interest, as they seem to be actively going after using the web to provide a better product to their readers.

Welcome Rocky Mountain News Readers

For those of you visiting the blog for the first time because of this article in the Rocky Mountain News, welcome to the conversation. This blog�s primary purpose is in support of our staff development efforts at Arapahoe High School. To learn more about the purpose of this particular blog, you might read About This Blog or The Beginning.

If you�re more interested in the Did You Know? presentation (original version or version 2.0), then visit this page on the wiki. You can click through the various posts to read through the history of the presentation that took on a life of its own (and much more info available on other pages on the wiki). You might also want to visit Scott McLeod's blog, as Scott played a large role in the spread of the presentation. If you�re interested in 2020 Vision or some of the other presentations, then visit the presentations page to find the presentations and links to the original posts for context. Please keep in mind all of these were intended to be the start of the conversation, not the end of the conversation, and should be viewed in that context.

If you�d like to read some more folks that are trying to figure out what our students need in order to be successful in the 21st century, then check out these bloggers. Thanks for joining the conversation.

Update: One small correction to that article in the Rocky Mountain News. At the height of it I was getting 50 e-mails a day related to the presentation. Right now I'm only getting about 5 to 10 a day.

Paper Is A Great Medium?

It seems only fair since I linked to The Denver Post earlier this week to also blog about an article in Denver's other paper, the Rocky Mountain News. This article is actually a column from John Temple, who is editor and publisher of the paper. (He also has a blog, but he hasn't posted since January.)

The Rocky Mountain News has been doing some interesting experiments with their use of the web (including YourHub), and Temple writes about it fairly frequently and transparently. I think they are really trying to get their collective heads around how best to use the Internet - and of course how to stay solvent - so I'm not trying to be critical of their overall efforts. But this paragraph in his column made me stop and think.

. . . reporting a story online while it breaks doesn't weaken coverage in the newspaper. If anything, it actually strengthens it. There are a couple of reasons for that. First, by writing about events as they happen and as new details emerge, we learn how to shape more thoughtful packages for print. The Web is a great medium for breaking news. That's where you should turn to us to find out the latest. The paper by definition can't be real-time. It's at best a few hours old. But the paper is a great medium for analysis, perspective, depth and memorable storytelling, both visual and in words.

I pretty much agree with all of this. But that last sentence really makes me wonder,

But the paper is a great medium for analysis, perspective, depth and memorable storytelling, both visual and in words.

While that certainly is often true, I don't see where the "paper" part is critical to that sentence. Because can't they offer "analysis, perspective, depth and memorable storytelling" online, and actually offer more of it? With links to even more information? And then when you throw in "visual," doesn't the web offer much more opportunity, "space", and medium choices to the mix? To a larger audience? With more timely, convenient, economical, and environmentally-friendly delivery? And when you throw in blogs or other Web 2.0 tools, doesn't it offer the possibility of much more interaction than the print version? Then toss in search and pretty much unlimited archive capability, and doesn't that sentence strike you as perhaps missing the mark just a bit?

I know that many folks still prefer to read a newspaper in print rather than online. In fact, when I read a newspaper (which I do less and less of, at least in the traditional print sense), so do I. And the portability and readability of paper still triumphs technology for most people. But I think the technology will advance sufficiently in the next 7 to 10 years that that may no longer be the case. So I found it interesting that in an article about the changes they were making, and specifically about how they were trying to better integrate the web into their work, that the "justification" if you will of the value of the print edition wasn't really much of a justification (at least to me). In fact, it could've just as easily been a "justification" for an announcement that they were ceasing publication of the print edition altogether and moving to just an online version.

So, ignore the "I prefer to read it in print rather than online" issue for the moment (since I'm focusing more on what he decided to include in his column, and he didn't include that). Please read the entire column first to get the big picture of what he's saying, then what are your thoughts - does this strike you the same way as it did me?