Sam Zell, the recent buyer of the Tribune chain, has some highly revealing views in a lengthy discussion with Portfolio.com.
Among his more pointed ideas:
1. A monopoly mindset.
2. An outdated notion of breaking news.
3. An errant emphasis on non-local news.
4. An impossible-to-decode rate card.
5. Order-takers, not ad sales people.
6. A lower price for home delivery than for a newsstand paper.
His interview pulls few punches and it's worth a look.

Journalism 2.0 asserts that not all is lost on the local news frontier online. It's still possible to develop value through joint ventures and connections, that it's not necessary to do everything any longer, and that it's time to hit the ground running now.

Eat Sleep Publish  provides a chart from Edward Roussel of the Daily Telegraph that essentially says taking print production out of the mix of expenses ---- that is, shifting to digital --- would increase profits.
It's a clever chart, but it misses a fundamental point or two: Many people buy a paper because it's paper.  Revenues will fall precipitously because advertisers will not pay the same rates to reach people online as they would in print. 
Yes, expenses are reduced if you can eliminate newsprint, a plant, cartage and sales incentives to market a print edition. But so does revenue fall.
Were it only that easy.

John Battelle, the social media guru who runs the fine Searchblog, contributes to the American Express OPEN Forum this month on how marketers can employ social media.
The most important thing: Don't think of intrusion or trickery, insinuate yourself into the transaction and conversation, perhaps by underwriting the experience and thus adding value to someone's life --- and life to your product.

Buzzmachine and its engine Jeff Jarvis continue to produce some of the most provocative commentary on the direction of news and information. Today's post is an exceptionally long but compelling look at how local news is bound to change. Some of his points;
1. News will not be about news organizations, but their communities.
2. Local news organizations will be smaller.
3. News will emerge from networks.
4. The heart of news organizations will be beats.
5. Editors will be curators, those encouraging and improving creation.
6. Some journalism will be supported by the public.
7. Investigative work will continue.
8. News organizations will do what they do best and link to the rest.
9. Specialization will take over much of journalism.
10. News will find new forms, including reverse syndication, and they'll be disaggregated.
11. Lots of non-news organizations will produce news.
12. Revenue will still come from advertising.
It's worth a full read.

Marketing and brand guru Seth Godin obviously had had enough when he saw Jennifer Aniston on today's Sunday New York Times Magazine cover (note: it was its annual screens edition).
He took to blogging about the wasted currency and equity of the Times and how it might have positioned itself for a vastly stronger future.
In short, his points:
1. Use the influence and brand to let others spread their content.
2. Leverage the op-ed page and spread important ideas.
3. Build a permission asset.
4. Keep score (with lists).
5. Stringers.
6. New platforms for advertisers.
He concludes: "I guess it's about the difference between: senior management playing defense, supporting and protecting the status quo and avoiding offending the elders upstairs vs.
using existing momentum and clout to build assets for the next business."

The exceptional resource Beatblogging.org identifies blog-backs at The Sacramento Bee as a worthwhile exercise in hoisting good comments out of the mix in real-ish time and clarifying vague information in posts.
It's an excellent premise for news organizations frustrated by a) mediocre comments and b) user engagement. In essence you're rewarding the best comments with a little more status.

The Poynter Institute's conference on protecting good journalism and ensuring it exists in five years has produced an effective five-point guide to newsrooms and conclusions about the business:
1. Collaborate and partner.
2. Harness the energy from learning from existing experiments.
3. Target and customize.
4. Get over being jilted by the audience.
5. Defining value, then pricing it, remains elusive.

The University of Tennessee is looking for a new football coach. The blogosphere and the digital news sites are teeming with content. So the Knoxville News site, knoxnews.com, opted to link out and provide topic pages of these external  spots for fans. The result: Huge page views, higher than anything else on the site. Publishing2.com has a look at the phenomenon.

Google is on to something and up to something.
Its SearchWiki, tied into your Gmail services, offers a rich way to continually refine search results with some discretion. It provides users with a greater sense of their search history, so the notion of personalized search takes one more step. And its consequences for those aiming to crowd into the search space might be significant. Essentially Google is building a feedback loop here. YouTube video below.