But people will continue to get daily news reports delivered to their door or driveway early in the morning for a long, long time. I think newspapers are going to be there in the end because we will take advantage of the branding we have. People have confidence in what we do and our ability to gather news, present it fairly, and maintain credibility, whereas a great deal of what you get off the Internet is totally not credible. The Sun Herald arguably has the best newspaper Web site in Mississippi. The newspaper industry has spent untold billions on the best way to provide an Internet edition.
Some good newspapers do a Web site one way, and some do it another.
There has been all of this talk about the importance of newspaper Web sites. But of the companies that have been dropping millions on this technology, only two or three Web sites that provide news information have ever made a nickel. Most of the Web sites are gobbling up the profits of newspapers. The importance of newspapers in the brave new world is that with all of this fragmentation of information, the newspaper is almost the last common ground that tries to talk to people across the landscape, regardless where they live, their jobs, income levels or ethnic backgrounds. The newspaper goes to everyone.