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U.S. publishers come in for withering criticism in a report this month from the German Newspaper Publishers’ Association.

While daily newspaper circulation in the United States fell 27 percent from 1998 through 2008, it slipped 19 percent in Germany. While fewer than half of Americans read newspapers, more than 70 percent of Germans do. While newspapers’ revenues have plunged in the United States, they have held steady in Germany since 2004.

Most German newspapers are owned by family concerns or other small companies with local roots,

As my final year class room project, I decided to take up the Newspaper design.

The complete newspaper of over 20 pages reduces to mere 4 pages of essential and selective reading, as the reader doesnt have the complete time to read the entire news, though he wished he had been able to read everything.

As The Times and its Sunday sibling challenge the Internet orthodoxy that readers will refuse to pay for general news online, some of the conventions of newspaper Web design are already tumbling. Freed from the imperative to generate clicks and to lure search engines, The Times and Sunday Times have taken a novel, reader-focused approach that minimizes distractions.

advertisers are most interested in audiences who actually care about what they read or watch, rather than the casual Web surfers.

The new Sunday Times site is particularly striking visually, with a heavy emphasis on photography. Clicking on an article brings it up in a separate box, with everything else on the page shrouded in a dark gray screen that makes for easier reading.

The top editor of The Times, Russ Stanton, and several of his deputies vigorously opposed the ad before it was published, but they were overruled by the paper’s business executives, according to people with direct knowledge of the dispute,

Mr. Conroy noted that however unorthodox the ad may be for print, it mirrors a common practice online of having an ad cover part or all of a Web site’s home page for a few seconds.

“It’s taking a concept that we normally apply to new media and reimagining it to a concept in a newspaper,”

our 'photo-op' culture, where much of everyday life seems picture driven and played out in front of the camera.

"As a professional practice, photojournalism has historically relied on two forms of scarcity. The first involved the scarcity of skills to make good images, and the second the scarcity of popular access to the dominant forms of print distribution, the newspapers and magazines. Both of these limits have now been fundamentally challenged.

"Amateurs are able to purchase and use the best camera technology to make striking photographs, and - although it is not solely responsible for the decline of newspapers - the transformative power of the Internet has reduced the cost of publication to near zero, thereby opening up new channels for the circulation of imagery. Together these transformations have produced a new era of abundant pictures.

The Dominion Post decided to remove from the picture three delegates who sponsored Erin’s Law.

relies on software algorithms to collect technology news in real time into what is essentially the front page of an ever-changing industry newspaper.

turns to humans to filter the ever-growing number of articles and blog posts published online each day

Mediagazer, a new sister site for media industry news.

Speaking to investors last month, Mr. Murdoch said that the News Corporation was in “final discussions with a number of publishers, device makers and technology companies” about digital delivery of news and entertainment. “We will soon develop an innovative subscription model that will deliver digital content to consumers wherever and whenever they want it,” he said.

in the current digital news ecosystem, having “week” in your title is anachronistic in the extreme, what an investor would call negative equity.

in a publishing landscape filled with the lame and infirm, weeklies are the most profoundly challenged. A weekly schedule, with its tight turnarounds and frenzied production, is costly as a matter of course. Monthlies can still do step-backs for readers who don’t expect to see what happened five minutes ago, and daily newspapers have co-opted the newsweekly formula to build in real-time analysis.

It is axiomatic that in the current epoch, it is much less cost-intensive to build out a new brand than to try to walk back the cat on a legacy business.

"People are way more hungry for news at their local level than even we imagined," said Brian Farnham, editor in chief of Patch. "There's a lot of good sources for news existing at the national level and beyond, but at the local level the cohesive experience is missing."

Top staffers get a salary of about $40,000 a year, and rookies get less, Tucker said. His wife, personal finance writer Jane Bryant Quinn, serves as editorial director and coaches journalists on writing skills and headline writing. Twenty newsroom employees produce content for the 10 sites. The stories focus on local people, and the company currently does not rely on user-generated content. "News gathering is a real profession," Tucker said. "Citizen journalism is a completely false rabbit. It's simply not going to succeed."

Patch, by contrast, solicits citizen contributions for news tips, feedback and announcements and calendars.

When you pick up the paper, with its solid reporting on local politics and strong point of view, you know what to expect. A well-defined sensibility, deep local roots and a focus on its one and only market give the publication staying power.

In the Internet era, there are plenty of options for those attracted to an alternative sensibility. But even if the Salons of the world capture some of that audience, there’s still a place for the distinctively local approach — and chains, by their nature, find that harder to cultivate.

But a strong local voice and brand identity are key to possible new strategies in areas like live events production and participatory journalism. Even on the Internet, where scale matters, local coverage remains a promising frontier.

The State of the News Media 2009 is the sixth edition of our annual report on the health and status of American journalism. Our goals are to take stock of the revolution occurring in how Americans get information and provide a resource for citizens, journalists and researchers to make their own assessments.

YOU can tell when a print journalist has lost his full-time job because of the digital markings that suddenly appear, like the tail of a fading comet. First, he joins Facebook. A Gmail address is promptly obtained. The Twitter account comes next, followed by the inevitable blog. Throw in a LinkedIn profile for good measure. This online coming-out is the first step in a daunting, and economically discouraging, transformation: from a member of a large institution to a would-be Internet “brand.”