Blogs can’t compete with Newspapers.

Any proper geek will tell you that newspapers have a lot to learn from the blogging industry if they hope to maintain a hold on readership. But for every one of those geeks, fifty newspaper readers will ask what the hell a blog even is. With that in mind, I’d say newspaper groups still have time to make a power play or two.

Let’s assume that one of those power plays comes in the form of two-way publishing and readers are now able to comment on every article. Let’s assume further that papers loosen up and start linking to other views of the topics they cover. Let’s go all the way and assume columnists are able even to give their opinions on a story now and then. It would be far easier for newspaper groups to incorporate the technologies and methodologies of a blog than for blog networks to incorporate the credibility and comprehensiveness of a newspaper. I’d also propose that old media realizes their need to inject some new media character into their gait. And it will.

If I stopped writing right now, it might look like I think newspapers have a leg up on blogs. As fun as it is to be an antagonist, I’ll finish the point: it doesn’t matter. Blogs and newspapers don’t compete. There’s no such thing as mutual exclusivity in online readership. Nobody is choosing to read the BlogHerald or the Star Tribune (I think they’re both from Minneapolis.) They’re choosing to read both.

They’re so dramatically different in flavor that they even complement each other – blogs cite newspapers all the time. I’d love to see content from popular blogs finding its way into community newspapers (and I mean the print edition.) I remember thinking our paper was doing something right when they began inserting the Motley Fool section directly into the paper. There’s no reason that same concept couldn’t work for a blog like LifeHacker. That’s an all pro, no con situation for each.

So why the rant? I’m intrigued by the number of newspaper vs. blog comments stemming from the recent newspaper initiative announcements. Marshall Kirkpatrick commented on the local blogging networks serving as incredible competition to newspapers (my emphasis) in a recent post regarding the Yahoo! / newspaper deal. I think I even made a fuzzy, but similar, comment in one of my own posts.

Whether this post was worth reading or not, you have to admit that I wrote a hell of a headline. Had I replaced “can’t” with “don’t,” nobody would have cared enough to read me.