It is interesting how quickly it appears the book publishing industry has embraced digital distribution and yet the Newspaper industry can’t. Well I decided to write this blog as I read my last home delivered Sunday Oregonian newspaper. Yes we finally gave up, that feel good morning coffee and paper just is not what it used to be. Generally it is a wet paper that requires you to remove the tricky half wrap add to see the front page, then search threw the rest of the paper to find Business and Sports. I think it was the recycling effort that finally did us in.

Well this week the Oregonian, Portland’s newspaper, had another layoff. Significant in that the “No Layoffs Promise” was rescinded in August of 09 by their parent company when they started the early retirement enticements. So in less then a year with 25% fewer employees the paper is still tossing out the same old lines that the newspaper industry is strong and the only problem is that the darn Internet is stealing all of their advertisers. Yes, and your business model is??? And they complain that they are spending half their effort on the online version, “OregonLive” with no positive results. True, online newspapers have to be real newspapers not outdated web portals. Come on you regional newspapers, you don’t have that much time. Formulate your alliances with some larger digital news service with multimedia development skills that will help you to be competitive.

I will buy a subscription to a good digital newspaper especially if there is some regional presence. I may not feel that it is fair to pay the same amount, but at least half. And considering distribution is 85% of the cost shouldn’t that help your bottom line. Plus you regain those advertisers who bolted for the Internet.