With Insight Like This ...

It’s both laughable and pathetic that the head of any newspaper in the world today would deem it necessary to utter the following words: “Newspaper companies that survive will not consider themselves newspaper companies.”

Yet, that was a highlight from Dallas Morning News Publisher James Moroney’s (I’ll refrain from the obvious jokes about the aptly named publisher) recent letter to his staff marking the publication’s 125th anniversary. This might have been a reasonable statement 15 years ago (even 10 years ago ... maybe), but in 2010?!

If you work at a newspaper and you’re so cement-headed that you need to be told that the game now is about the dissemination of relevant information through any and all means your various constituents desire, then you and your organization are surely doomed ... and deservedly so! However, my guess is that the people in the trenches are well aware of where things stand, it’s the newspaper’s execs who are just coming to this realization (or finally able to utter it out loud). Hate to tell ya, fellas, not only are the horses no longer in the barn, they’ve been grazing over yonder for nigh on a while!