There’s a lot to love in this news report about online newspapers from 28 years ago. Dialing the rotary phone to connect to the modem, citing a whopping 2,000 – 3,000 computer owners in the Bay Area, waiting two hours to download the content of a newspaper (and paying $5 an hour for the privilege)… Still, they weren’t far off in predicting how most of us get our news today.

Who knows where we’ll be in another 30 years?

Got any words that deserve to make the 2008 list? LSSU is accepting submissions. If you need inspiration, I recommend watching any post-game interview of a losing NFL coach.

Online readership of newspaper sites continues to grow. The NAA pointed to recently released data from Nielsen//NetRatings showing a 5.3 percent increase in the number of people who visited newspaper Web sites in the first quarter of 2007.

While most of the top 20 newspaper circulations fell, it is interesting to see which ones made notable gains. The tabloid-style New York Post jumped a whopping 7.1 percent (as the paper proudly proclaims on its site), and top national papers USA Today and the Wall Street Journal have also seen slight gains.

When I was growing up my Dad had an evening ritual of getting home from work, kicking off his shoes, and diving into the Detroit Free Press. On the contrary, when I get home, I kick off my shoes and fire up my laptop to check my RSS feeds and regular news sites. Same ritual, different medium.

I’m very interested to see how newspapers make the transition to a world that gets the majority of its news online. By incorporating social news-like features, USA Today has had perhaps the most interesting online makeover, and the structure of the newspaper really lends itself well to an online environment in the first place. Will other papers follow suit?

Doc Searls has eleven insights for saving newspapers, and includes comments from Web luminaries Dave Winer and Tim O’Reilly. Much of his advice seems to borrow concepts from blogs and social media, such as linking out, ceasing charging for news online, opening up archives, and partnering with bloggers.

Some “old media” giants are slowly opening up to new ways of reporting the news- USA Today recently adopted several “community” features, such as allowing readers to vote on stories (ala Digg). CNN launched I-Report, a call for citizen journalists to send them stories. While it’s been good for topics like reporting severe weather, the full potential hasn’t come close to being realized.

I know it’s cliche, but it’s a changing media landscape, and newspapers are beginning to feel the heat. I look forward to seeing how newspapers can adopt new strategies and innovations to “adapt and thrive,” as Doc Searls writes, in such a world.

Yet when gaming blog Kotaku posted about a rumored new feature for the Sony PS3, Dave Karraker, the senior director of corporate communications for Sony Computer Entertainment of America, canceled scheduled interviews with the bloggers and dis-invited them from an upcoming press event. I think Kotaku editor Brian Crecente was spot-on in his response:

I think this only highlights the differences that PR people and journalists have. My interest is not in making sure that Sony has positive news or that the timing of their news is correct, my job only is to inform the readers of news as quickly and accurately as I can.

Frankly, Mr. Karraker should understand Kotaku was only acting in the role of a journalist (and/or a blogger) and nowhere, as far as I can tell, behaved in a less-than-ethical manner. (Ultimately in the end cooler heads prevailed, and the two parties are on friendly terms again.)

I can understand not working with a reporter who takes quotes out of context and writes biased, one-sided stories in an effort to make an organization look bad. But for reporting a leaked story? That’s weak. The media does not serve PR, nor should they.

UPDATE: Joystiq, the other most-widely-read video game blog on the net, comments.

The best part of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force “bomb” scare? All of the media outlets photoshopping out, blurring out or outright removing the Mooninite’s crude middle finger. Fortunately the Mooninite threat has been quelled, as arrests have been made.

These little LED objects were placed in ten cities around the United States. Why was Boston the only one to go on high alert?

UPDATE: The men responsible for planting the devices in Boston gave the most bizarre press conference I’ve ever seen. A must-see.

UPDATE 2: The Turner CEO apologizes.

There’s some really good stuff here, but my favorite quote comes from Andreas Kluth at The Economist, who advises, “Be ‘rare, relevant and short.’” So poignant and so perfect.

I remember how incredibly nervous I was making my very first pitch, and I still get a bit nervous when pitching to a new reporter. I also remember how great it felt when the reporter I spoke with decided to follow-up and run the story I pitched. Pitching, like all professional skills, gets easier with experience. I suppose I still have a lot to learn.

The classics, as they say, never die.

At the same time, the "standard" press release has it’s upsides, too. Most importantly, the media is familiar with the format, and is accustomed to scanning releases for relevant and interesting pieces of information. I’d be worried that if I sent a release in a radically different format, a reporter might not (at least at first) respond to it at all simply because it’s unfamiliar. It must be said that a well-written press release about a newsworthy topic still works, even if it is "boring."

While it’s certainly worth investigating alternative methods to distributing messages, I think the press release will remain the most important piece in any PR pro’s toolbox, at least for the time being. Using new and innovative means of communication alongside the press release, however, could offer the best of both worlds, piquing the interest of reporters while still providing them with familiar tried-and-true methods of communication they’re used to.