Food for thought...

Californian newspaper outsources covering city hall - to India! (via Editor&Publisher)

Newspapers use open-source software to engage readers online (via www.journalism.co.uk) A growing number of newspapers are turning to open-source software Drupal, in the race to build engaging news websites.

Craig Newmark: This is a time of creative destruction (via Editor&Pulisher) Newmark told an all-too-knowing audience at Newspaper Association of America's annual convention that this is a time of "creative destruction" and that he has a "great deal of sympathy for people who run the printing presses. They are screwed." It's not that journalism is becoming obsolete; rather the delivery methods are changing: "Even the kids realize news is important. The problem is paper is too expensive," he said.

Shift happens - powerful slide show about our changing world Originally entitled Globalisation and the Information age (via JP Rangaswami)

Which are closest to journalism: blogs, twitter, social networks? I think journalism itself is a dated concept. We are now in the world of conversation. We are talking to ourselves...

P J O'Rourke on Internet and Adam Smith:
I wonder if the know-it-alls at Wikipedia realize that the Internet was fully described and completely understood more than 200 years ago by Adam Smith...

Contrarian viewpoint on the future of newspapers from Lightspeed Venture Capital (via David Black)
I don’t think that news has become a commodity because newspapers make it free. Rather, I think that news is free because its a commodity. In a world of wire news, where you read the story hardly matters.... The important thing that allows papers like the WSJ, and like the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, to continue to charge for subscription is that the content that they have is NOT a commodity. The journal covers business news to a depth and breadth that no other US paper does. It adds insight and analysis. What you read in the journal you often CAN’T read elsewhere. Similarly, I imagine that readers/subscribers of the Democrat-Gazette online are not turning to it for news on Iraq or the election, or topics that are well covered elsewhere, but rather news about local issues in Little Rock and in Arkansas that are NOT covered elsewhere. Its the local paper’s coverage of local news that allows it to hold its audience - not its coverage of commodity news.