For all the Sturm und Drang surrounding the newspaper industry's well-publicized woes, what often goes unnoticed is that a small number of papers are beginning to figure out that the
World Wide Web needn't be viewed as a reader-stealing foe. Instead, the Web can be a valuable, revenue-producing ally. It can be leveraged as part of a broader strategy to serve readers and,
consequently advertisers. Red Herring's print piece, posted on its Web site this week, is one of the best explanations yet of how big-thinking newspaper executives are, at last, successfully
incorporating what's good and unique about the Web into their overall product portfolio. "While it’s easy to cite statistics charting the decline of the newspaper industry in the United
States--The Los Angeles Times, for example, lost nearly 100,000 subscribers in 2004, the year it won five Pulitzer prizes--newspaper folk are figuring out new media fast," Chris Tolles,
vice president at Topix.net, a news aggregator," told Red Herring. Tolles is in a position to know. Three old media companies, Knight Ridder, Tribune, and Gannett, bought 75 percent of Topix for
an estimated $50 million in 2005. Papers are using blogs, video, Craigslist-style advertising, and novelty initiatives of various types to keep themselves relevant on the Web, and in many places the
strategy seems to be working. Red Herring cites examples from smaller newspapers, such as the Naples (Fla.) Daily News, and big, such as The Washington Post, in its story about
papers battling back from the brink.
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