Twelve miners (not) found alive

Pretty much every conventional U.S. daily newspaper published east of the Rocky Mountains has egg on its face this morning. So do some in the west. Contrary to what you may have found rolled up in your driveway this morning, 12 miners were not found alive in Tallmansville, W. Va. Between the time the presses rolled and the time the papers were delivered, the story took a tragic turn.

This isn't a new problem; I wrestled with it for years as a daily newspaper wire editor. But the world has moved on, and newspapers have not.

Most are still pretending to be the primary connector of a news-hungry population with the outside world. Most still think of themselves as gatekeepers. Most are still stuck on the idea of a "newspaper of record" -- if we don't write about it, it didn't really happen. Meanwhile, most Americans have switched from newspapers to television, 24-hour cable news, and the Internet for breaking news, especially disaster coverage.

It's time to sunset the 20th century. It's been over for five years now.

In the Wizard of Oz, the Wicked Witch of the West said: "These things must be done delicately, or you hurt the spell." Most newspaper journalists believe that; there's a deep-seated fear of alienating "our loyal readers" by making radical changes.

I'm not afraid of that. "Our loyal readers" aren't going anywhere, except inevitably to the grave.

I'm afraid of something else: never succeeding with an entire generation that has grown up in a digital universe where everything is connected, where everything is everywhere, where technology has broken the barriers of time and space. A universe where what you know is held not necessarily in your brain, but behind a Google query. A universe where everyone is a publisher and no one has to depend on outdated information thrown into the driveway from a delivery truck.

This should be a wake-up call to every newspaper editor. Get your key staff members in a room with a whiteboard. Write down the six things your newspaper can do really well. Then compare that list with what's really in your newspaper. I'll bet you'll find a big disconnect.