Meryl's Notes Blog

I’ve seen articles like this one from The Washington Post (sign in required) proclaiming, “The venerable newspaper is in trouble. Under sustained assault from cable television, the Internet, all-news radio and lifestyles so cram-packed they leave little time for the daily paper, the industry is struggling to remake itself.”

We do have many choices. My day can’t get off to a good start without my coffee and newspaper first thing. I’m from Gen-X. I don’t stay up late enough for the news. I do read news on the Internet, but I get sidetracked by emails and non-news Web sites. So the paper is my best source.

But this doesn’t help The Dallas Morning News, my local paper, which has undergone several layoffs. Instead of throwing in the flag, the paper started a blog (as much as it promotes its blog, I couldn’t find it from the Web site with ease so I could provide the right link), RSS feed, and does what it can to take advantage of technology. It also launched free tabloid, Quick, a great read.

What does the future hold for newspapers? With the technology available today, might we see more papers do what the Wall Street Journal does… go national? Maybe papers will merge down to a select few and those will become the national papers. Good candidates: LA Times, Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Dallas Morning News.