Hey Newsies: Stop Whining. Start Innovating.

The current issue of the Columbia Journalism Review continues a cringe-inducing trend of "woe is we" pieces about the media, printed in the media, for the media. The latest lamentation is "Lost Media, Found Media," might as well be titled "Real Journalists Think Blogs are Scary and They're All Alike." Oy.

My response:

Stop whining. Start innovating.

Every reporter, editor and news exec should repeat that like a mantra every morning and every evening. Why alleged newspaper leaders think they can do better by making their product increasingly irrelevant is beyond imagining.

Cutting staff and shrinking newsholes for short-term financial gain is no strategy. Less does not equal more. And old does not equal new.

Newspaper execs talk like the record company executives who still think they are selling CDs, not music. Market news, not paper. Give people a reason to buy the paper/visit the website/watch the video/listen to the audio/interact online.

I get the fear and uncertainty. I scored my first professional newspaper byline in 1993. I have bled ink.

But the world is changing. Deal with it.

Feel free to disagree.