Steve Outing, one of the industry's most grounded analysts, has been rolling up his sleeves for a long time in trying to help the newspaper business transform first into a digital model and then into a digital model that works as a business.

His latest column for Editor & Publisher is more plaintive than most, in that it critiques the recent musings of U.S. newspaper executives in reversing course to charge online readers for content. Outing argues it won't work, the local media will lose relevance (socially and technologically), and the strategy will open the door for competitors.

But Outing isn't all into the free-to-be camp, either. He believes there are opportunities to drive revenue from readers --- he just doesn't see it happening through a firewall, not when so many others seem prepared to keep giving much of that same content away.

Instead he advocates partnering with advertisers to offer loyalty programs that permit readers not only to gain free access to content but other benefits. In other words, the carrot approach and not the stick. His biggest idea: Discounts for members from those same advertising partners, instead of generic coupons.

A number of months back, veteran newsman Steve Outing extended his column and other journalism into a campaign to help reinvent the beleaguered newspaper classified ad.

This is hardly the sort of glorious effort that gets written in the blogosphere or commended in the journals, but Outing has gained quite a bit of traction in launching ReinventingClassifieds.com. He's attracted a lot of good insight from the industry and from those outside the business under siege.

His most recent post assembles many of the central notions involved in reimagining what was once the milch cow of business.

Among the approaches are these five:

1. Redesign using your best talent.
2. Redeploy to digital what you're cutting in print.
3. Rebrand yourself as a classified portal.
4. Rededicate yourself to mobile.
5. Rethink classifieds as content.

There are several more in the post, which should be required reading for sales teams --- and for that matter, circulation, marketing, finance and editorial teams.

In his regular Editor & Publisher column, Steve Outing suggests newspapers need to stick to quality, to public service, and to the plan to help readers deal with the digital sphere. He isn't big on wild redesigns to attract younger readers. Forget about it, he says., they're not coming to the party.
Our experience at the Sun has been that our reworking of the paper with more context, comment and analysis is paying off with our readers and satisfying those who use us on occasion. We point to our Web site and direct people there all day for breaking news, but we haven't tried to make the paper feel like a site, as some have done.

A plug for a new site from the distinguished newspaper/online columnist Steve Outing, www.ReinventingClassifieds.com, which engages us in a conversation about how to revive the most ailing part of the newspaper business.
The site has a fair amount of commentary already. It ought to be a valuable resource in the time ahead as organizations try to suss out the future of a once-weighty revenue stream that is under siege from the free kings like Craigslist and Kajiji and the tailored classified sites in automotive, real estate, obituary and other categories.

Steve Outing has for years been sounding a reasonable, practical tone in striving for strong journalism in realistic economic conditions in his writing for Editor & Publisher. It should come as no surprise that, in weighing in on the direction of newsrooms, Outing is recognizing the days of mini-vans arriving with new personnel seem done for the time being. But he sees a viable, positive option in developing a professional-amateur model of journalism, tapping into expertise and enthusiasm in communities of interest to complement the work of the full-time professionals.
Outing notes that the first wave of so-called citizen journalism might have foundered, but he notes that version 2.0 can enlist vigorous, intense expertise in markets for niche sites to add to the work of newsroom journalists.
A number of newsrooms have done this with blogs, but Outing is suggesting something more active and involved. In the same way journalism has used freelancers to fill roles to serve audiences, this appears to be an obvious route to better results.