How to Save Newspapers

The mission is to brainstorm ways to make papers as useful, newsy and entertaining as possible, with almost universal appeal. Impossible? Here’s an idea that for a single  feature that might manage to do all that.   
People mostly live in three worlds these days: Home. Work (or school). And car. So just think of all the high-interest subjects a dedicated Car Life Columnist might explore:
Traffic […]

Steve Lovelady, an ex-Inquirer editor, once made the memorable remark that newspaper’s biggest threat wasn’t TV news, but TV dramas like L.A. Law. The ability of TV to captivate  is a big reason Americans have less time to read. So meet the challenge by embracing dramatic storytelling. Instead of inching multiple crime stories along day by day, adding […]

Not saying Rush Limbaugh should hold court on your editorial pages. (Not knocking that, either.) Asking how the energy and give-and-take of the best radio talk could swiped and put in print. 
Best bits of the Morning Zoos. High jinks hghlights.
Host online chats, and slap some of the lively dialogue in print. 
Do team writing, or team […]

There’s sports talk. Opinionated political talk. Even shows all about money. But why not TV-movie-music-media-Web-celebrities-and-maybe-also-a-little sports-and-sex talk? Key to good talk radio is having two lively hosts who often disagree (a la WIP in Philly), and who can juggle several hot topics at once, to hook a wide audience. Keep the whiny politics out of […]