• by Diane Mermigas , June 10, 2008

Leave it to real-estate investor Sam Zell to deal a death blow to newspapers by selling them off and slashing them down at Tribune Co., even as Rupert Murdoch revamps The Wall Street Journal and U.S. News & World Report goes bimonthly on thin ad revenues. As newspapers and magazines struggle with digital, it's fair to ask whether the Web's viral McMedia will ever rival print publishing's great reads.

Agonizing over the decline of newspapers and magazines are the writers and readers who value detail and useful, fact-based analysis. The single-idea, five-paragraph, flash-headline read, which has sadly become the norm for news reporting and analysis, is no substitute for them. Now it's the USA Today approach to fast and brief news for consumers with a 15-second attention span and a three-inch mobile screen.

Online media is limited by its technical logistics and orientation. Does the revamped online front page of The Wall Street Journal or New York Times have the same ability to grab consumers? How much of online news and information will emanate from just a handful of professional news-gathering organizations, outsourced for reasons of economic efficiency?

We must strike a compromise before we lose more penetrating, fact-checking print journalism to the brevity and glib babble of online posts. That would be tragic, if not dangerous. Print publishing must master being relevant, accessible and applicable to digital consumers armed with mobile connected devices. The experts predict that more than 80% of the world's population will access everything from Internet-connected mobile devices in five to 10 years.

It's no irony that local and niche advertising have led newspapers and magazines' online conversion, having lost the all-important classified ad ground to Craigslist and display ads to Yahoo and Google. Most newspapers, like most TV stations, have yet to leverage the strong draw of community--local stories, issues and constituents--as their trump card online. Trimming 500 pages of news each week from the Tribune's dozen newspapers will force them to distinguish themselves with a corner on local fare in markets such as Chicago and Los Angeles.

Another killer app that will help print's online leap is gossip and innuendo, as witnessed by the massive pickup Vanity Fair's attack on Bill Clinton's id is getting a week after publication. Actress Gina Gershon broke her silence about the article linking her to the former president, calling it "a crazy, outrageous lie." She complained about the lack of fact-checking by journalists and the lightning speed with which rumors saturate the Web.

Although there is plenty of thoughtful writing, high-caliber journalism and ethical citizen reporting on the Web, there may be too little overall. U.S. Internet users are less likely to trust Internet posts by individuals (such as bloggers) than they were eight years ago. Take note: a majority trust the online orgs more than all other professional news-gathering sources, according to the USC Annenberg School Center for Digital Future.

To some degree, the power of words to inform and enlighten will become a function of media platforms. Reading about a rousing speech by a presidential candidate is not as effective as listening or watching it. Analyzing and digesting complex issues may need to be presented and packaged differently on digital media. But there is no substitute for verified fact and substance. Witness television coverage of the presidential election and what veteran NBC newsman Tom Brokaw complains is TV pundits' "commentary disguised as reporting."

The Chicago of my youth was a six-newspaper town when John Kennedy transformed politics into a television affair. This year's charged presidential election is the first full-blown digital contest in which uncensored, real-time impressions matter more than commentary and analysis. Even with a plethora of information and insights, can we become a less informed and less enlightened citizenry if the best of what print offers does not transfer to an Internet? Can online users develop a tolerance and appreciation--even demand--for a more in-depth read?

If you believe Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, the death of newspapers and other print media will come in less than a decade, when "no media consumption will be left" and everything is delivered electronically over Internet Protocol. At that point, mass media and its brand of journalism become extinct, as prophesized 15 years ago by novelist Michael Crichton in an essay titled "Mediasaurus?" Or, does it morph into something better?

In the end, it may be the overbearing cost of physical plants, distribution and legacy operations that prevent traditional newspapers and even television from making the digital conversion fast enough. But the real metamorphosis will be generational. The population's top-heavy baby boomers will continue their love of conventional newspapers, magazines and books right alongside their online devices. The Gen Xers, with no quantified attachment to print media, save their college campus newspapers, will be the game changers. Hence, digital platforms, supported by what is now shifting newspaper and television ad spend, will account for 80% of global media conception by 2020, according to Aegis Group's Carat.

Maybe it's not so much the journey from printed page to digital platforms as how media platforms will change our expectations and demand for factual reporting and analysis. That is the kind of change that can transform who we are and how we embrace the world.