Today, I’m turning over my blog to a friend and colleague, Amber Smith, Health and Fitness editor at The Post-Standard in Syracuse. She and I share a love of journalism, new media and connecting with readers and often swap ideas. (Check out her Health and Fitness blog.)

She turned me onto City University of New York journalism professor Jeff Jarvis’ book, “What Would Google Do?” which I ended up blogging about last week. Now it’s her turn to interpret what being like Google means for the news industry.

Here’s Amber:

As long as our industry evolves from newsPAPER to news ORGANIZATION, we’ll survive. And when you think about it, that should be easier for us to do than, say, turn “Dunkin’ Donuts” into a place for great coffee. If Jon Luther can position DD for the future, surely a bunch of passionate journalists can save our profession.

I’m 43, with more than 20 years experience writing and editing in newsrooms.  Every day I walk past the printing press on the way to my desk. Sometimes as I come to work, newspapers are being carried overhead on their journey to the distribution and ultimately the loading docks. It’s somewhat surreal, though, because I sit at the keyboard and hit “enter” when I’m ready to publish to my blog and “send” when I’m ready for newsletter subscribers to receive their latest issue. No printing press. No mailroom.

So mentally, even physically, I’m making that “leap” from newsPAPER to news ORGANIZATION. I still sought help understanding this new lay of the land, this future. I turned to BuzzMachine blogger Jeff Jarvis’ book, “What Would Google Do?”

“In the shift from physical to digital and mass to niche, the best way to exploit the legacy value of a paper is to use its old-media megaphone to promote and build what comes next. First, a paper has to decide what is next. It has to design and build its post-paper products – retraining and restructuring staff and sloughing off unnecessary costs – before the presses go silent. It has to promote the new products even at the expense of the old: Cannibalize thyself. Convincing audiences and advertisers to move to the future is better than following them there after they have discovered other sources of news.” (page 125).

Sounds sensible, I thought, and read on – about what a newspaper would look like once it’s no longer a newspaper. Jarvis describes “more of a network” with a smaller staff of reporters and editors still providing essential news.  “As a network, it could be bigger than papers have been in years, reaching deeper into communities, having more of an impact, and adding more value. To get there, it has to act small but think big – and see the world differently.”

That, to me, sounded encouraging. I read the rest of the book, using it to help me compare the newsPAPER and old way of thinking with the news ORGANIZATION and new way of thinking:

Old way of thinking

The newspaper was a product.

New way

News organizations provide a service.

Old way of thinking

Readers became known as “the audience” in the early days of the Internet, describing a one-way relationship wherein readers sat still to observe a performance.

New way

Readers/users are participatory.

Old way of thinking

Newspapers attempted to be all things to all people, serving a mass geographic audience.

New way

News organizations strive to serve a mass of niche communities that already exist, (some geographic, but most based on interests.)

Old way of thinking

Newspapers marketed themselves to a population.

New way

News organizations converse, engage and collaborate with the communities they serve; the population markets the news organization among itself.

Old way of thinking

Newspapers operated in a climate of “scarcity;” news space became tighter when ad sales diminished or the price of newsprint increased.

New way

News organizations have an abundance of space on line.

Old way of thinking

Readers accepted their newspaper because it was all they had.

New way

Readers find the news they want, regardless of where it’s located.

Old way of thinking

Newspapers that embarked on the Web sought a place to distribute their content.

New way

News organizations see the internet as a 3-D space of reciprocal links. “Every link and every click is a connection, and with every connection, a network is born or grows stronger.” (p. 28)

Old way of thinking

Newspapers spent money conducting focus groups to find out what readers liked/disliked, and analyzed the findings with skepticism.

New way

Through conversation, news organizations ask readers/users what they want, so the news organization can serve the communities better.

Old way of thinking

Newspapers gave readers what newspapers thought they wanted/needed.

New way

Readers land on news sites when they search (usually through Google) for information on particular topics — so news organizations have an opportunity to serve readers by writing articles that answer those questions.

Old way of thinking

Readers would search through the various sections of the newspaper for information they could use.

New way

Information is available through an easy search on line.

Old way of thinking

Readers got their news when the paper hit their doorstep, or soon after it rolled off the presses.

New way

Readers don’t wait for the presses to roll but expect the information immediately.

Old way of thinking

Deadlines were mostly daily with stories due at a set time.

New way

We’re always on deadline.

Old way of thinking

Newspapers experimented with various looks and styles, creative use of white space, various fonts, etc.

New way

Strive to be ‘Googley’ so that you’ll turn up in Google searches and readers can find you.

Old way of thinking

Editors were in charge, choosing which stories to provide to the readers/audience, based on what the editors thought the readers/audience wanted and needed to know.

New way

Readers are in charge. They read what they want, when they want.

Old way of thinking

Newspapers served each reader the same plate of information.

New way

Readers fill their plates with the things they like.

Old way of thinking

Editors decided which beats would be covered.

New way

“Beats” are based on niche communities that already exist.

Old way of thinking

Newspapers reported the news, but reporters weren’t allowed to make themselves part of the story.

New way

To connect with readers in niche communities, news organizations seek to put personal touches on news and information, often in the form of blogs.

Old way of thinking

Newspapers were hesitant to even mention competitors in the newspaper.

New way

News organizations do what they do best and link to the rest, as Jarvis says, and yes, that means even if the link leads to the competition.

Old way of thinking

Soon after the “nut graph” newspaper stories contained a paragraph(s) of background information.

New way

Articles on Web sites link to anything that’s relevant – background information, transcripts that back up interviews, photographs. “On line, content without links is the tree that falls in the forest that nobody hears.” (p. 124)

Old way of thinking

The “editorial we” separated the newspaper from the masses.

New way

People from news organizations respond directly to readers, solving their problems, learning from them and sharing the experiences with others.

Old way of thinking

Newspaper employees told readers with complaints to “write a letter to the editor.”

New way

News organization employees engage angry readers, so they don’t lose or alienate them .

Old way of thinking

Newspapers took national stories and “localized” them by folding local information into a wire story.

New way

The local story gets written because it has “unique value,” but instead of being folded into the wire story everyone has already seen, it links to it.

Old way of thinking

Newspapers valued employees who possessed writing skills, were inquisitive and assertive and quick.

New way

News organizations value writing skills, inquisitiveness, assertiveness and speed – but also “customer service” traits of friendliness and the ability to accept criticism.

Old way of thinking

Newspapers charged as much as the market would bear for ads.

New way

Charging just enough to break even for ads allows an audience to grow larger, eventually leading to more ad sales at higher prices.

Old way of thinking

Newspaper ad rates were based on circulation, how many people bought the newspaper, and advertisers had to hope readers would notice their ads.

New way

Ad rates can be based on the number of page views, or clicks, so advertisers know more precisely how many people see their ads; and, the ads can be targeted to those niche markets.

What do you think of what Amber says? Expand on it; share your ideas in the comment. (And follow me on Twitter.)