It has so far been dominated by business themes, the nuts and bolts of margins, revenue streams, investment strategies, barriers to entry, technology headaches, accounting questions, e-commerce and the still unclear issue of what's the best path to a profitable future. Gannett's notable exception, its major New Media extravagance, is the online version of its flagship USA Today , a paper which may have finally demonstrated that even newspapers can undergo sex-change operations. USA Today is the Renee Richards of media properties. It's one of the most popular news sites on the Web, and the company says it has been making a profit since September. That's one paper, one company.
Every media company has a different approach.
All these business decisions and opinions reflect a social context. It's important to remember that Old and New Media rivalries are shaped by cultural conflicts and aesthetic differences and generational tensions. Sure, Mike . . . Or maybe they're just exasperated because the gray bears won't get out of the way. Pundits have been predicting the death of newspapers for more than 100 years.