As a newspaper editor, working on three papers in southwest Minnesota; the subject of online news interests me greatly. Recently we launched three new online editions of our paper, all free to the reader. We’re still working on our online model and watching with great interest what others are doing.

Earlier this month the New York Times announced plans to begin charging for most of its online news content, starting shockwaves throughout the Newspaper industry. Sure it has been done in the past, the Wall Street Journal has been charging for years and many other publications charger for back issue content.

I have been in the midst of many newsroom meetings, discussions and debates about the merits of charging for online news content and at this point I see both sides of the coin. We have been offering this content for years now, conditioning readers to expect news content to be free.

There are many similarities to Napster in the late 1990s and the way news is handled today. When newspapers began limping their way online more than a decade ago no one truly knew what it meant to put news online. There was as much debate then as there is now. Today we’re faced with the decisions that were made back when newsprint started to go digital.

The genie is out of the bottle and it’s going to be near impossible to get it back in there, no matter how many wishes the industry makes.

Of course my analogy of illegally downloaded music through services like Napster and the newspaper industries decision to put its content online for free is somewhat false. Newspapers pretty much universally did it willingly. Where the similarities merge is the difficulty the newspaper industry faces, how do we demonstrate value in purchasing when similar, if not identical content is available freely to readers around the world?

Over the last decade the newspaper industry has seen a great shake up with publishing firms, newspapers and magazines folding, selling off and letting people go left and right. It’s a scary time to be in the print industry.

The unfortunate side effect of this comes in where news originates from. A large majority of good news reporting still comes from newspapers. Sure television and online bloggers are doing fine journalism, but the first stories almost always find their home in print.

As newspapers continue to close down around the U.S., smaller communities are going to begin to lose their voice. A few years ago I was involved in the coverage of a story in the small town of Cottonwood, Minnesota. Four children were killed in a bus accident that made headlines around the world.

It was covered on Fox News, CNN, the nightly news programs and countless blogs online. A large amount of that coverage originated from the newsroom I worked at. We were inundated with phone calls, requests and inquiries. The Marshall Independent newspaper is where that story grew and early reporting was done.

Would the Cottonwood bus crash have been covered if the Independent hadn’t been there? It’s a difficult question to answer, but many of the iconic images that helped tell the story would not exist.

I have heard the argument that bloggers can do as good a job as newspaper reporters. I don’t disagree with that, however most bloggers don’t have the same mandate that a community newspaper does. I don’t see many bloggers sitting in on RTR school board of Lake Benton City Council meetings. I don’t think that would change if those communities no longer had newspapers. Those meetings and events would go un-noticed.

This is where I admit that the majority of the news I consume comes from free online sources and even a number of blogs.

I am not attempting to change anyone’s mind on the subject. I still don’t know if charging for news online is a model that will work. I just hope people don’t dismiss the importance of newspapers in our world today. We’re still relevant and have our place. I just ask that you recognize that and support us during this difficult transitional period.

I can’t thank my team enough for the hard work they’re doing. Newspapers often come under fire for missing something or an error here and there. Trust me folks, this is not easy work and the people who do the work care deeply about what they are doing.

The industry is facing some difficult times. For those who think we’re blind to this fact, trust me – we know we need to change. There are constant conversations going on behind the doors of newspaper offices around the world. I’m trying to take a proactive approach and I plan to work on looking at possible avenues for the three papers I work on.

There are no simple answers here, but there is one undeniable truth. Local news comes from your local newspapers. While radio and television do a fine job delivering small chuncks, it is ultimately up to the newspapers to produce in depth and well thought out coverage of the events that affect you directly. I encourage you to continue supporting your local newspapers while we move into this transition period. It’s going to happen faster than some people want, but it is going to happen.

I’ll post some of my views on how this is going to shake out from time to time. For now, go pick up your towns paper and give it a read. You might learn something you didn’t find online.

A few months back I started writing a blog for the Independent, part of my job. I have struggled ever since to come up with something that is actually worth blogging about. I don’t want to spend too much time blogging about what is going on in my cover area because this could reduce the amount of content I have for the print edition. I’ve written about technology but at the same time I have a semi-regular column that covers that topic.

I wrote a blog post a few weeks ago that really grabbed some attention by the readers. You can read it yourself and give me your two cents on it if you’d like. This post proved that people are at least semi-interested in what I have to say — even it’s just a chance to disagree with me.

There haven’t been as many obvious things to blog about since the RNC in St. Paul. I really haven’t had much to say on the site. Earlier today I realized that maybe I should try posting a “featured link” style blog. Give people ideas for Web sites that might interest them. What do you think, is this something that would grab readers attention? Let me know.

This was the first time I’ve been at Farmfest on day one. I’m usually there for the last two days, covering a county board during the first day. Luckily this time around I was able to make it to this major debate. If you’ve been following the ad campaigns for both candidates, you likely know what was said during the forum.

I was glad to see forum participants throughout the week talking about the importance of high speed Internet access to rural Minnesota. I’ve been preaching this for years and it’s good to see it finally reaching the decision makers.

During my digging, I discovered two CDs I’ve been looking for and feared lost. The two were Whiskeytown’s “Strangers Almanac” one of my favorite albums that I was close to re-purchasing and Remy Zero’s “The Golden Hum” an album that marks the early Otts for me pretty clearly.

While doing this I’ve had music on in the background, specifically Nine Inch Nails “Ghost I,” the first part of a recent download album Trent Reznor released much like Radiohead did late last year.

With such a breadth of music to dig through, it makes me realize how varied my tastes in music really are.

I was curious to see what a certain pretentious online indie review site had to say about the latest NIN release. While there wasn’t a review of the album up yet, there was a review of the recently re-released delux edition of “Strangers Almanac.”

The reviewer was somewhat indifferent about the album, laying claim that it isn’t the bands strongest work in comparison to its freshman album released a few years prior. WIth this indifference the reviewer slapped a “6.3″ out of a possible 10 to the album.

I don’t understand quantifying an albums quality down to that much detail. It seems fruitless. You either enjoy an album or artist or you don’t. I’ve tried myself to give reviews that put a number to the pavement – this is an 8 or whatever. It’s a fake way of giving a summed up review.

I’m taking a stand now. I’m going to try to avoid putting a star, number or thumb to my reviews of music, movies, video games and the like. If I enjoy it, I think you should be able to get that feeling based on what I’m saying about the subject. If you want a quick summery to determine in seconds if it’s worth your time, I’ll try to include a paragraph for that.

When writing a blog post about a movie or album, I tend to look at it as a way of recommending something to friends. Generally I try to avoid things that I feel are sub-quality or things that don’t interest me. While I have in the past written about things that aren’t high quality, I do so because there is relevance – maybe it was part of something that in the past proved to be good, but fell short on subsequent attempts.

I encourage bloggers out there to write reviews from the heart, don’t feel the need to slap digits or celestial ornaments to a review just to get your point across. This is new media – lets use it for what it’s worth!

It was billed as an interesting keynote address for SXSW, a conference that brings together technology, music, art and everything else in between. An evolving event that kicked off many years ago that has expanded from a focus on music to what it is today.

The piece of SXSW that seems to be attracting the most attention this year is an interview between Mark Zuckerberg, an entrepreneur with a reputation for being shy and avoiding public speaking. The other, a columnist/journalist who admits to being a friend of “Zuck’s” – Sarah Lacy.

What happened during the keynote address that was set up like an interview was something that apparently devolved into madness. Check out the video from where the interview begins to devolve.

An audience of about 1,000 attendees – with an addition group of overspill – were disappointed with the direction the discussion between Zuckerberg and Lacy was taken – a focus mainly on the business side of Facebook.

The crowd, filled with computer programers, bloggers and developers had little interest in the new models Facebook have developed and a little over 30 minutes into the keynote began to disrupt the discussion and ask their own questions.

Lacy ran into an issue that many interviewers need to keep in mind. She really began to stroke the ego of her subject too much. “I love Facebook,” Lacy said at one point.

She also continually promotes a book she recently wrote on the subject of Zuckerberg and Kevin Rose, another Internet personality who has helped shape the net as we are beginning to know it today. This apparently rubbed the audiance the wrong way as well.

I have never done a public, Jay Leno style interview – most of mine have been more on the intimate one on one angle. It’s obviously a difficult thing to tackle and one she obviously falls short at it.

See Lacy’s response.

I have not read her columns or any other material, I am actually interested in her book and will likely check it out. I sympathize with what she went through during SXSW, I’m one step away from being in her shoes. (Ok 1,000 steps but still). It’s not easy.

Note to the audience, if you happen to read this – you were rude, inappropriate and should be ashamed of the attacks you sent Lacy’s way. To the first questioner – think about that the next time you’re not interesting or make some kind of a mistake. Your wordy question proved how difficult it is to do this.