Businessweek has a good piece on Old Media.”the story of American newspapers in the 21st century. The industry has reached a near-crisis point. Many dailies are losing circulation at an alarming rate, and local newspaper ad spending fell 3.1% last year, to $24.4 billion, while Internet advertising rose 17.3%, to $9.8 billion, according to Advertising Age.“

I stand corrected. Only Nytimes is doing well and my piece on Death of Main Stream Media is not true points to one thing.

The ones that are figuring it out are going to win no doubt. There is room for that, but the other ones are going the way of San Jose Mercury News. What separates the NYTimes from the SJMercury?

1. Indepth nature of reporting: The Times really has some great “firsts” and breaking news besides having some really good in depth reporting. I have heard many folks in the Bay area talking about spending Sunday morning reading the NY Times. Not so with the Mercury (even though its a local newspaper)

2. Faster to adopt social media. The NYTimes adopted videos, podcasts, blogs way faster than anyone. I guess that points to innovation, but I think its just adapting to new (changed) circumstances.

3. In depth technology specific reporting: Look back at Techmeme. The number of times NYTimes made the list is FAR greater than SJ Mercury. Why technology? Most of the “people” who are “digital natives” are from the technology industry.

What do you think?