A friend recently shared a blog post on “12 Things Newspapers Should Do to Survive” by Vadim Lavrusik, a new media student at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

The post caught my attention because it didn’t focus on all the negativity I’ve seen about the looming death of newspapers (or even more ridiculous claims that journalism itself is dying). Rather, Lavrusik focuses on a lot of the positives at play in the newspaper industry today, specifically:

• How journalism is expanding with social media
• How smart media organizations are tapping audiences and sources to create user-generated news
• What forward-thinking media publishers can do to transform their newspapers

A key (and obvious) observation from the post is that newspapers need to find new revenue streams to secure their future financial viability. I couldn’t agree more. But if you really think about it, that’s always been the case for newspapers. As Lavrusik points out, newspapers have had multiple revenue streams for a long-time. The problem is a lot of those tried and true streams have dried up (subscriptions, traditional and classified advertising, etc.). So what can newspapers do to improve their financial positions? [Read more…]