All over the world and for a very long time sports is the arena that unifies communities. In my opinion, sports fans did and still do drive lots of newspaper sales.

You pose the problem for newspapers as growing number of people (especially young people) who just don’t care about news I would submit that people who “really care about the news is tiny and have always been tiny. Of course, when an “event’ occurs that number increases with enormous speed.Only to dissipate when the storm has passed.

The most notable “serious” exception is the financial press with Bloomberg doing the most interesting things. But in the world of celebrity gossip, I assume there are others.

It may sound snarky but I really do believe the defensible advantage of the newspaper is not the news but the logistics and infrastructure of delivering the paper. Shoppers, local newspapers seem to have weathered the storm quite well.

My take is that journalism and newspapers are completing the divorce that started when TV news became the preferred method of mass news consumption.

You might find this video interesting. It’s David Simon at Annenberg talking about what journalism needs to be to thrive. http://ilnk.me/1162

I especially like the point about the money. ESPN throws its cash around well.

Now … let’s get ESPNSeattle.com ….

Thanks,
Stefan Arnold