By accident I discovered an online forum where newspaper people can discuss the issues pertaining to the industry, and you can visit it here.

What I find of most interest is the same, defiant, old-man-on-the-porch mentality that I think you’ll find in most metropolitan daily newsrooms: the stick yer head in the sand and yer ass in the air, all-around denial mentality that the newspaper doesn’t need to change, that they’re not losing audience, and that they’re keeping up with the 21st century.

Look at the topics on that forum. By no means is any newspaper keeping up with the times if they have to ask themselves:

Which is better, covering people’s wants or their needs?

Should we go to a 100% advertiser-supported business model?

Should articles be sexy?

Is the death of newspapers all hogwash?

What I think:

If you give readers more of what they want, you’ll sell more copies and increase revenue.

If you give them free newspapers, circulation will probably rise, and you will then justify raising ad rates.

Damn straight. The more sex, the better. Isn’t it time to grow up and stop being afraid of boobies?

If you even THINK about using the word hogwash, you are not keeping up with the times, and your paper deserves to be put to death.

Publishers, CEOs, Editors, Reporters: the newspaper — YOUR newspaper — has to evolve.

That means YOU have to change your primordial ways of thinking . . . or all the dinosaurs will be driven to the extinction they deserve.