The Salt Lake Tribune has come up with a story-on-a-story approach to its front page --- a so-called SOS --- that essentially summarizes it in 3.4 inches of text.
Readers find so-called "turns" frustrating, and in a broadsheet format, flipping back and forth to and from a turn can be next to impossible (especially on the commute). This approach basically teases the content but supplies enough of it to understand the piece inside.
The Tribune is, like many other papers, looking for more reader-friendly ways to deliver content. The Poynter Institute provides a look at the initiative.

New York University professor Jay Rosen has contributed an immense understanding to the evolution of media. In this clip he's talking to the Carnegie Council on the arrival of a link ethic that ought to guide media in networking with each other's content.

An oasis in the challenges for North American and European papers is the strengthening German market. In short, Business Week concludes, it's this:
1. Embrace the Web.
2. Partner with a telecom.
3. Get into the mobile space.
4. Enjoy risk.
5. Love competition.
Rule three is a challenge in North America, but the other four are on the table.

The situation is deemed so dire in the U.S. newspaper business that the McClatchy chain of 29 papers --- including the interactive division --- will absorb a one-year wage freeze starting Sept. 1. McClatchy's papers include major properties in Florida and California.

Wherever public-financed media exist, private media will express concerns that tax dollars are essentially at work to undermine their business. The latest fracas in this field is the concern in Britain that the BBC's new digital initiatives to generate more local relevance through a 68-million-pound investment in local video sites is an encroachment on the smaller-town newspaper franchises.
The Newspaper Society, the entity representing those papers, has submitted a lengthy argument to the federal regulating body that outlines its case. The BBC, meanwhile, has indicated its efforts are necessary for its own relevance.
It's a predictable dispute made even more predictable by foreseen circumstances --- the notion of national media breaks down in the digital sphere. Local relevance is easier to manufacture.

The trend line for the big-city metro newspapers in the North America has been well-discussed, but one sector bucking the decline is the community newspaper. It's still withstanding the effects of migration to the digital sphere.
The Suburban Newspapers of America (SNA), which represents about 2,400 papers in the United States and Canada, reports revenues declined only about 2.4 per cent in the second quarter. They totalled about $482 million in that period.
While that hardly seems like a success, it's dramatically better than the urban counterparts' record, particularly in the U.S., where the declines have been significant.
The reason appears to be two-fold: hyper-local editorial and advertising content more meaningful to neighborhoods and communities, and an emphasis on retail advertising of greater resiliance to national economic trends.

Everyone is looking for ways to economize on news production, so it's hardly surprising that in opening 10 new bureaus across the U.S., CNN has chosen the most affordable route. That means working out of other organizations' office space, with a laptop and Internet camera to report.
ABC News tried somewhat the same approach last year in some of its foreign bureaus. Which is not news at all to the dozens of Internet-based news organizations that have been using cellphone cameras and laptops for years to deliver journalism. What remains surprising is that criticism remains of these mobile-journalism models, as if their journalism isn't the true journalism of the mahogany desk.

It's worth keeping abreast of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee. Really.
It has been examining the approaches by Web giants to targeted advertising. It has been finding that some firms are using the technology without informing users. Google has acknowledged using tracking technology that examines Web behaviour.
The committee review and the implications for such advertising are enormous for the news industry, which is looking for new streams of revenue and needs to employ a full digital arsenal. The committee's work may lead to more stringent privacy laws in the U.S., which could easily influence other laws worldwide.

CNN.com has introduced BackStory, a feature that provides related background information to developing news stories. It's an interesting tool that has the potential to help people understand the context of a development --- in particular how other events led to it. At the very least, it's a resource of archived information.
Its first application involves the 2001 anthrax scare in the U.S., recently in the news again because the suspected perpetrator committed suicide.

Major U.S. media firms like Viacom, Time Warner, CBS and News Corp. are battening down the hatches for a significant advertising slump in the next year. TheStreet.com outlines the approach today, ranging from restructuring to expense pruning to riding it out. To date the most substantial problems exist in the U.S.