The new New Media

It’s time to start talking of the new New Media.

The New Media is not that new any more.

The Internet has been around for more than a decade already.

WorldNetDaily is in its eighth year – the DrudgeReport, 10.

But there are new ways of using the New Media being devised every day.

Let me tell you about two of my favorites.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away – a galaxy known as California – I served as editor in chief of what was called, back in those days, a daily newspaper. Specifically, this one was called the Sacramento Union.

It was my last full-time position in the world of daily newspapering in a career that began nearly 20 years earlier. The Sacramento Union had a proud history as the first newspaper for which Mark Twain wrote. The notable Herb Caen followed a few years later. And then me.

A couple years after I left, the paper died one of those agonizing old newspaper deaths. People mourned in California’s capital city – and this was even before Gray Davis became governor.

But, to get to my point, the man who hired me as editor of that noble journalistic institution, James Smith, has resurrected the Sacramento Union online. Smith is definitely, like me, a renegade in this business. He previously served assignments as president of the old Washington Star and general manager of the Sacramento Bee before taking over the job of trying to make the Union, once the leading paper in the city, competitive again.

I don’t think there’s another man in the news media who more closely mirrors my thinking about our industry than does Jim Smith.

So, I wish him well on this new endeavor – which really is new.

Has a dead newspaper ever before been revived on the Internet? I don’t think so. But it’s a great idea. We ought to have more of them. It would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to start or restart a daily newspaper in the traditional sense. But for thousands of dollars you can start or restart one on the Net.

I hope you will support the new Sacramento Union as a bold new step in the new New Media.

And here’s another idea I like.

Everyone talks about the synergy between talk radio and the Internet, but how many people actually make it work in practice?

Radio station KSEV in Houston is doing it.

Bugged by what it perceives as the slanted approach of the only newspaper in town, the Houston Chronicle, KSEV and host Dan Patrick have done something about it – besides complain.

Their new site, ChronicallyBiased.com, does just that – chronicles the bias of the Chronicle. It’s not just a whining blog. This is one that gets specific – and detailed.

And the site has ambitions beyond just tracking the errors of the paper. The editors say they will break stories of their own when the Chronicle fails to cover local developments deemed newsworthy.

Why aren’t more enterprising radio stations doing this? What a great idea!

Both of these ideas can and should be replicated in other markets across this country.

This is how we can take the media back.

These are ways to shine a little light in the dark corners of the press’ own world.

These are examples of ways we can light candles and stop cursing the darkness of the dying Old Media.

So, who says there isn’t anything new under the sun. Welcome to the world of the new New Media.