America’s daily newspapers are struggling to stay in business. Some have been reduced in size; some in frequency. Some have ceased print versions and are only found online; some have ceased to exist altogether. Personally, my newspaper stock has tanked.

Those who study and comment on the media mourn the loss of in-depth investigative reporting, which may now fall almost exclusively to magazines – and the less frequently published, the more detailed the treatment. There appears to be little market for daily media between these periodicals and the near instantaneous communications of electronic media.

Even Google was too slow with the news when the airliner landed in the Hudson River. Twitter had the story a half-hour sooner.

So . . . what might this mean for high school sports?

Several things . . . some good; some not so good.  But in the interest of brevity that is the most obvious feature of the newest of modern media, I suggest only this one positive effect.

To succeed again, local daily newspapers must provide what the national media and the instant sources do not do and perhaps cannot do as well:  cover local events.  And give us lots of local names.  And connect local advertisers to local causes, including our schools and their teams, clubs, plays and concerts.  In other words, go back to the way community newspapers began! 

The Lansing State Journal is now a slim, trim version of its former self.  While it continues to publish daily, it’s in the new online features where readers (and now viewers) within the community are becoming increasingly engaged.

After 174 years of publishing daily, late last July the Ann Arbor News was transformed into AnnArbor.com with only Thursday and Sunday print editions, and the publishing objective to become “hyperlocal.”  New technology for an old approach to community news.