Recessionary times are all about relativity. Beancounters take a look at the biz climate and decide just how big of a hit the organization is going to take. We estimate that sales will be off 20 percent from the same period last year---that's how the exercise goes.

Read More "Newspaper Ads Down 29 percent: Not A “Good” Slump" »

A crusty newspaper editor, let's say he's in his late 50s, is forced to take a buyout. Faced with some time on his hands, he gets on Facebook to a) post photos of his small, blond granddaughter and b) network to find a job. A first cousin, close to him in age, friends him and starts "suggesting" he friend others on the family tree. Crusty Newspaper Editor (CNE) declines to do so. Later, he updates his status with a sad tale of leaving an afternoon ballgame to go to a job fair where no one wants a crusty newspaper editor's skills.

The problem? Fixated First Cousin (FFC) is stuck on the unfriended relatives and sees this status update as an opportunity to dig at Crusty Newspaper Editor. Second problem? Both of them are old and don't know when to take it offline.

Trainwreck exchange after the jump.

Read More "When Facebook Goes Wrong" »

I watched the repeat of Thursday's "Oprah" on WJLA-TV about 1 a.m. last night. Suze Orman was the guest.

The personal finance guru delivered a sermon called "Rescue Yourself!" that included the steps folks should take to survive the current economy.

Among the first cutbacks advised: "Cancel Newspaper."

Read More "Oprah Kicks Newspapers When They’re Down…" »

If Jeff Jarvis had his way, this post would not exist. In his new book "What Would Google Do?," Jarvis lays out a number of rules to help dead tree newspaper types and corporations in general face the new online reality--including "do what you do best and link to the rest."

Just like the newspaper industry he criticizes so frequently, What Would Google Do? seems like an attempt to make money off of content Jarvis previously gave away for free (his blog Buzzmachine apparently wasn't generating enough Google Ads revenue to pay the bills). Reading the book, one can almost imagine Jarvis opening up Google Docs, pasting in a series of blog posts, whipping out the thesaurus (or rather, firing up the search engine) and tapping out awkward transitions between each topic like a co-ed writing a thesis paper. That "link to the rest" rule, along with many other ideas Jarvis lays out, now has a catchier title then when it was a blog post titled Cover what you do best. Link to the rest. The general point is the same - in the age where everyone is a critic, why does every paper need a local critic? The link, writes Jarvis, changes every business and institution, but it's "easiest to illustrate its impact on news.

Read More "Attention Google Crawler Bot: JEFF JARVIS, WHAT WOULD GOOGLE DO?, READ THIS IT’S IMPORTANT" »

Dave Morgan has written some very definitive words on OnlineSPIN. Here's the critical line from his piece:

"I am not going to write about newspapers anymore."

Morgan doesn't leave this drastic statement simply hanging there. Like any strong columnist, he explains why he's going to these great lengths:

I no longer believe that the industry is very relevant to the future and things digital. Since I prefer to write about those topics, and am also becoming more interested lately in how the Internet will reshape the television and video industries, I plan to focus my attention there.

To all of which I say: Say it ain't so, Dave Morgan. Dave Morgan, as you know, is founder of TACODA and Real Media, not to mention chairman of the Tennis Company, owner of TENNIS.com, plus TENNIS and SMASH Magazines. To have a mind like this simply bow out of the newspaper-commentary business is staggering.

Please join me in appealing to Dave Morgan to continue writing about newspapers. He brings fresh and genuine insight to the subject area, and the industry needs as many minds as possible trying to figure out a solution to its woes. The sort of insight we could be missing in perpetuam lies right here, in a few lines from Dave Morgan's (hopefully not) last column on newspapers:

[T]he notion that the purity of newspaper journalism is the cornerstone upon which today's great metropolitan newspapers were built is revisionist history. Most of today's great newspapers were built through achieving dominant distribution in their markets, not through delivering better journalism. Most U.S. cities used to have two or more competitive newspapers. The eventual winner was almost always the one that won on the battle on distribution or advertising, almost never on journalism.

So please, go to Dave Morgan's site and ask him to reconsider. To reverse this hasty and foolhardy decision to stop writing about newspapers.