There's been two articles occupying tabs on my browser for a few days on the future of newspapers. The first one that I want to get out of the way is this one written by John C. Dvorak in PC Magazine.

I only link to the column out of habit, there's no need to read it. I'm pretty convinced that Dvorak was drunk when he wrote it. How else would you explain this:

To survive, old media need to optimize content, not worry about the new delivery mechanism. The movies turned to wide-screen projection to keep TV from stealing customers; the same concept can work for newspapers, magazines, and broadcasters. The idea is to change the content into a form that the new distribution medium simply cannot duplicate. In other words, make a newspaper that is optimized for print and cannot be usurped by an online newspaper.

People in the variously attacked media must understand why their medium is special. Then they have to optimize for that specialness. For example, newspapers allow people to scan vast amounts of information quickly and efficiently. No online mechanism can do this, but newspapers often choose to simplify content delivery, copying the way other mechanisms work. Thus, newspapers are trying to be more Internet-like. Have you ever seen newspapers from the 1950s? They were packed with stories and not filled with features and fluff. Newspapers were practically all news items that readers could scan visually.

What the heck is he talking about? What is that supposed to look like? How the heck is "all news items that readers could scan visually" something that can only be done in print? Does this guy write his columns using those word magnet collections that people put on their refrigerators?

The second column, by the Los Angeles Times' Tim Rutten is far more coherent and thought-provoking.

I encourage you to read Rutten's column, but I do want to note one conflict that Rutten doesn't resolve in his analysis. Rutten posits that British newspapers are further down the path to the mythical "future of newspapers" because the major British papers are being read (online) by more Americans than Brits. Rutten also lectures American newspapers to not even think about abandoning their post-WWII "nonpartisan" standard for reporting and analysis.

So, on one hand he holds up British papers as a model to follow -- except for the thing that makes British papers truly unique, the fact that they take partisan positions on their news pages. You know you're going to get one viewpoint in the Guardian and a different one in the Times of London. Rutten argues that it's the more in-depth analysis found in British papers that is drawing American eyeballs -- but maybe it's the rejection of the American model of faux nonpartisanship. Maybe people are reading British newspapers because it's obvious where the reporters' biases lie and they're sick and tired of a biased, unbiased U.S. media.