Typical newspaper executive 'a bear of little brain' says Washington Post columnist

Washington Post columnist Michael Kinsley claims: "It is tempting, but too easy, to say the problems of newspapers are their own fault."
He writes: " True enough, the industry missed a whole armada of boats. If newspapers had been smarter, or moved faster, they might have kept the classified ads. They might have invented social networking. But that's all hindsight. I didn't think of these things, nor did you.
"Judging from Tribune Co., for which I once worked, the typical newspaper executive is a bear of little brain. Until recently, little brain was needed. Even now, to say the newspaper industry has no problems that a busload of geniuses couldn't solve is essentially saying that the industry's problems are insoluable. Or at least insoluable without help."
Kinsley notes:"Suggestions are pouring in that newspapers should become nonprofit foundations, or that foundations should supply investigative teams and foreign bureaus and other expensive accessories. Or that limits should be placed on the nefarious practice of "aggregation" -- Web sites lifting the news, via links, from other sites. Or that customers should be forced, somehow, to pay."
But, adds what would happen if nothing happens. "You may love the morning ritual of the paper and coffee, as I do, but do you seriously think that this deserves a subsidy? Sorry, but people who have grown up around computers find reading the news on paper just as annoying as you find reading it on a screen.
"If your concern is grander -- that if we don't save traditional newspapers we will lose information vital to democracy -- you are saying that people should get this information whether or not they want it. That's an unattractive argument: shoving information down people's throats in the name of democracy.
"But this really isn't a problem. As many have pointed out, more people are spending more time reading news and analysis than ever before. They're just doing it online. "
Kinsley asks of the future: "Will there be a Baghdad bureau? Will there be resources to expose a future Watergate? Will you be able to get your news straight and not in an ideological fog of blogs? Yes, why not -- if there are customers for these things. There used to be enough customers in each of half a dozen American cities to support networks of bureaus around the world. Now the customers can come from around the world as well.
"If General Motors goes under, there will still be cars. And if the New York Times disappears, there will still be news."
Story via journalism.co.uk