Author Dave Eggers, the driving force behind McSweeny's and The Believer magazine, shares his thoughts in a mass email about the relevance and future of newspapers.
In essence he says they're underutilizing the medium --- that they don't use the space properly and produce the right things in it. Put better: "As long as newspapers offer less each day—less news, less great writing, less graphic innovation, fewer photos—then they’re giving readers few reasons to pay for the paper itself."
He is promising a new newspaper in McSweeny's in the near future, built by young readers. "We believe that if you use the hell out of the medium, if you give investigative journalism space, if you give photojournalists space, if you give graphic artists and cartoonists space—if you really truly give readers an experience that can’t be duplicated on the web—then they will spend $1 for a copy. And that $1 per copy, plus the revenue from some (but not all that many) ads, will keep the enterprise afloat."
The folks at Splice Today have a thing or two to say about his premises.