Kevin: As Alf Hermida writes, the State of the (US) Media report for 2009 is 'bleakest' ever. Alf pulls out this quote from the report: "Journalism, deluded by its profitability and fearful of technology, let others outside the industry steal chance after chance online. By 2008, the industry had finally begun to get serious. Now the global recession has made that harder." The shift of audience to the internet has accelerated, which has resulted in a negative financial impact on news organisations, and the collapsing economy is decimating ad revenues, which is cutting into resources that could be used to develop new revenue sources.

Kevin: As newspapers look to change to finally face the disruptive innovation that is the internet, managers might want to look at ways that corporations change and deal with change. "Stanford professor Behnam Tabrizi, who spent 10 years studying corporations that have carried out reorganizations big and small." Among his conclusions: Effective change requires "fast and ruthless execution." But he also recommends creating multi-disciplinary teams that pull from an entire company. He says that it's better than hiring outside consultants and gives employees a stake in the outcome.