This in from The Huffington Post, according to a survey from the Associated Press Managing Editors, young staff at newspapers are being the first to get cut in this downturn for the industry. The findings also support recent surveys that state that the newspaper industry is maintaining a diverse edge in newsrooms. But, the cutting of young staff seems antithetical to the efforts of trying to liven up papers around the country. With so many young people entering newsrooms that are plugged into the social scope of the internet, it would seem as though newspapers are shooting themselves in the proverbial foot, all for the sake of lineage and tradition. It is not to say that that tradition hasn’t wrought some amazing moments, but to forsake the future for the even growing past just seems to provoke demise.

The full article goes more deeply into what young reporters are doing in the wake of these firings, which it hints at being jobs in new media. With the closing of August we can expect to hear more stories in the news and about the news, so stay tuned.

The design and art blog, Curated Magazine, details an exhibition at The Museum of Idaho titled Hot Type, Hard Times. From the museum’s website:

The “Hot Type, Hard Times, 1900-1910″ exhibit opens a window on the city’s frontier past and the decade when civilization finally took root in Idaho Falls. Detailing the struggle waged for control of City Hall by saloonkeepers, bootleggers and gamblers against a reform movement led by two groups bent on civilizing the town.

The first decade of the 20th century was a technology-driven period of sweeping social change in Idaho Falls. In the middle of the decency fight were the town’s three newspapers - the staid Republican Idaho Register, the Idaho Falls Times backing the reform candidate, and a brash pro-labor newcomer, the Daily Post.

More pictures after the jump.

An interesting item seen today on The Huffington Post alerts us to AMC and Regal Entertainment Group cutting their listings from local hometown newspapers. Instead, there is a new focus built on funneling the masses to their business website or even third party websites, such as Fandango, to find current movie listings. This makes sense in a day and age where most of us are connected to the internet, but as the stance of The Revival Network, the local newspaper is the bastion for all things relevant to a community and still the most democratic way to disperse new information. AMC and Regal are not taking a gamble on this, because the signs of the time are upon us regarding newspapers, but still there is a large section of citizens that still rely on their newspapers for this type of information. Go to here for the full story.

This New York Times article reports that the Washington Post has ceased working on their hyperlocal news endeavor, Loudoun Extra. Apparently the upkeep of these sites was deemed “unsustainable” for the Washington Post staff. Begs to question if hyperlocal is meant to be handled by the citizens themselves.

NPR posted a piece about the new book by Alex Jones titled Losing the News: The Future of the News That Feeds Democracy. Jones, the host of the PBS program Media Matters and the NPR program On The Media, has an interesting take on where news comes from, referring to it as a “core” that drives almost all industries:

This iron core does not include Paris Hilton’s latest escapade or an account of the Yankees game or the U.S. Open. It has no comics or crossword puzzle. No ads. It has no stories of puppies or weekend getaways or recipes for cooking great chili. Nor does it include advice on buying real estate, investing in an IRA, movie reviews, or diet advice. There is nothing wrong with any of these things. Indeed, pleasant and diverting stories are far more appealing to most people than the contents of the core, which some find grim, boring, or riddled with bias.

The full excerpt from his book can be found here.

Thanks to Aimee Gauthier for the scoop.

Follow The Revival Network on Twitter! Updates both from this site but also links and opinion to other articles published throughout the day, all related to the ongoing interest in the newspaper.

Apologies for the extended vacation here at The Revival Network. We are coming back to life, with some interesting ideas in the pipeline both for the network of self-published papers as well as aggregate coverage of the current status of the newspaper globally. Keep checking back for updates!

Three stories rolling in today from the gold standard of aggregate news sites, The Huffington Post, on the current state of the newspaper. First, this video from NPR CEO Vivian Schiller, who once ran the New York Times website. Schiller states her sentiments that newspapers need to be free, stating that the loss of subscriptions will free up a paper for more ad revenue.

Then, this story seen on the Financial Times website, wherein the discussion is about making the content worthy of being paid for. Seems like these two arguments are at odds with one another, with Schiller saying the content is there, let’s just make it free and the Financial Times saying the content isn’t good enough as a consumer good. Very interesting takes.

Lastly, Michael Liedtke of Huff Post brings this story of 28% of newspaper executives weighing subscription or online news fees to save the paper. The models are based on The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and Idaho’s Post Register, both of which use a model of subscription to the daily paper gives the audience access to all the news content on the site. Interesting again to link to Schiller due in large part to the New York Times dropping this model years ago to allow free news to all, a service that has been beneficial to those who stay informed, but bad for business.

Jon Fine of Business Week reports on American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) survey that finds newspapers have lower customer satisfaction than the airline industry. Again, this calls into question the need for quality of content, design and editorial practice to save the dwindling industry.

Steve Pearlstein, business columnist for the Washington Post, wrote an open letter / opinion piece based on the recent remarks from Warren Buffet about purchasing newspapers from around the country that are struggling. This letter is filled with interesting (if not somewhat shrewd) quotes, such as this one, “Virtually every big city daily has been losing money, advertisers and readers at an alarming rate because of a disruptive new technology — the Internet — and the current recession.” Now, the problem that I think many see with that statement is the overtone that the internet is somehow a platform that the newspaper industry views as a detriment, not an opportunity, which has been their poor thinking all along.

There are some other interesting points, primarily Pearlstein’s assessment of these struggling city paper’s as “cigar butts”, meaning enterprises you could buy up for a low cost but still have the glimmer and promise to be something great. His suggestion to have a single entity purchase all of these papers and fly them under one syndicate is also interesting, considering there is a business model and proven winner in newspapers in that fashion, that of course being Switzerland’s Newsnetz. The Revival Network also is based on the model of being a syndicate, but one that is more democratic for the people. Still though, given the clout of Buffet and the notoriety of Pearlstein, these words and ideas could be put into place and could figure to be a massive shake up and new direction for the daily newspaper.