There is a tragic story from the US that is currently unfolding that really underpins the challenges for old media today.

A coal mine accident has claimed the lives of 12 miners. However, the newspapers all got an early rumour that 11 were saved and one died. How they got it wrong, no doubt they will figure after doing the appropriate forensics. More important is that the newspaper editions are on the street with a front page story that is alreay known to be diametrically opposite to the truth.

Tragedy aside, the inability of newpapers to respond to a dynamically changing media marketplace combined with their apparent sheep like qualities, combined with the much more relevant and cost efficent advertising targeting of the web has got to mean that yet another nail is being placed in their collective coffins.

What still strikes me as amazing is that they still don't get it. What they need to do is to re-engineer themselves as New Media businesses where the central repository of up to date info is on-line - where there is video footage, audio, etc of reporters interviewing people - making the story as immediate and as human as possible. This is where newspapers have it all over the other traditional news media - TV. TV is constrained by its broadcast schedules. Newspapers are not. They have assets on the ground that can deliver the most up to date news in the form that we want. Why be so committed to the past, when clearly it is the now that we are living in, and the now is online.