One is TheDigitel, a site that is local to Charleston, and produces its own content, as well as highlighting the best of news from other sources across the area. They describe themselves as “a Web outlet that ‘gets it,’ [that] provides the Web integration and savviness that is demanded by young adults who grew up during the Internet revolution.”

TheDigitel.com strives to have good relationships with local media outlets. “We know that only through working together on the local level can we achieve the goal that we’ve set for ourselves: a comprehensive view of the community for everyone,” they say.

I had the privilege of meeting the founders Ken Hawkins and Chris Gigante at an event I helped organize for the Charleston Parks Conservancy and these are smart guys who I think have done something the Post & Courier should have along time ago. If traditional media don’t “get it” soon, they’re done for in the not too distant future, I fear.

Here’s what TheDigitel does right:

• Focuses completely on local content and on doing it right
• Has multimedia components; shoot their own video or use others’ video when appropriate
• Has a most popular stories category
• Allows you to search by topic and location
• Provides links to related coverage at other media outlets — TV, newspapers, radio, etc — and related stories on their site, making it a true resource for ALL Charleston news
• Allows for comments
• Very clean site, easy to read

What else it could do:

• Offer ability to share articles on popular social media sites with one click
• Allow others to embed video so long as it credits TheDigitel
• Add RSS feeds by topic

This is a fairly new site, however, and I’m betting these things are in the works.

Now, let’s compare to the Charleston Post & Courier site, the local paper of Charleston, S.C. Here’s what the Post & Courier does right:

• Ability to share stories on social media sites with one click
• Ability to post comments
• Starting to include some video with stories
• Offers some RSS feeds
• Offer some audio clips

Here’s what else it needs to do:

• Unclutter the pages; very distracting and difficult to read
• Add reporter blogs
• Improve search function; very clunky right now

In looking at these two lists, it appears the Post & Courier is not too far off TheDigitel, but visit the two sites and I think you’ll see the difference. I believe the key here is for traditional media to incorporate social media in a way that is unintrusive and helps organize the news experience instead of adding to the clutter. TheDigitel gets this right.

Any other suggestions out there for how traditional media can “digitize” itself into maintaining an existence?

Sure, you realize that anyone can “follow” your tweets and read what you say, but did you know that by going to Twitter’s search function (formerly Summize) you can find what anyone is tweeting about? Additionally, tweets now come up in the main search engines. I have a Google alert set up for myself and my companies (something everyone should do), and every day it shows me some of my tweets from the day before.

Well, apparently, a New York Times blogger who was writing about the new game show “Hole in the Wall” searched on Twitter to see what folks were saying about it. He found my tweet about what a crazy concept it is, but how I was still compelled to watch and used it in his blog post.

So not only is Twitter great for business, apparently it can get you media coverage too. Pressure’s on now to say something clever and insightful, huh?

I was also reminded how transparent I am making myself on Twitter the other day after I met someone I follow and who follows me on Twitter at a presentation I was giving. I regularly tweet about a hip hop dance exercise class I go to. He said to me “The whole time you were presenting all I could think about was your hip hop moves.” Which, believe me, is probably not a pretty image. Anyway, I thought that was really funny, as I do forget how much I am putting out there to people, many of whom, I’ve never even met.

Anyone had a similar experience with something you posted on Twitter?

But, that leads me to an even better idea. Everyone who has a newsroom on their Web site (if you don’t, please leave right now, I can’t even bear it), should now set up a Twitter feed for THEIR press releases, as well as an RSS feed. That way twittering journalists who want to stay on top of an organization’s news can sign up to receive it in a way that’s convenient to them.

The paper made a number of changes, which I’ll discuss below:
1) Narrower paper – I don’t know this for a fact, but I suspect this is to save $$ as ad dollars increasingly decline with more advertisers spending online.
2) Charleston.net is on the top center of EVERY page – This of course is to drive folks to their Web site (which still needs a fair amount of help in my opinion).
3) Increased focus on local news – The paper beefed up its local news coverage with a new tabloid-style section. This is something many local papers are focusing on. Local news one thing they can provide to the reader that they can’t get as well online yet. The Post & Courier also competes with smaller community papers in the area and they also added a Police Blotter section in this new tabloid, which is a popular read in a competing community paper.

Previously, the paper added a Friday 5 section, which works very closely with the Web site with a corresponding blog. Each week they detail lists of 5, such as the top 5 things to do over the weekend, and these lists often relate to technology and social media.

The site has also launched a citizen journalism component called Your Report where readers can upload their own videos, photos and news happening around them. This is an effort to join the Web 2.0 revolution where folks don’t just take information from the Internet, but want to contribute to the conversation, as well.

It’s very interesting to see how newspapers work hard to adapt to this changing environment in order to stay alive. I, for one, don’t feel like online news can ever replace my local paper, but that might be a different story for Generation Y, who has grown up comfortable with getting most, if not all, of their information online. Good luck Post & Courier!

The report found that the paid weekday circulation of some 530 newspapers across the U.S. fell 3.6%, with only two publications in the Top 25 — USA Today and the Wall Street Journal (have I ever mentioned that’s my favorite paper ?) — posting gains.

Biggies like the New York Times fell 3.9%, and the Los Angeles Times fell a staggering 5.1%.

Just today, I read where the Myrtle Beach Sun Times and the Lexington (KY) Herald-Leader offered employees buyouts. Newsweek did the same a few weeks ago, and Time also recently let go some 100 employees. I also had a conversation recently with an editor at the Charleston (SC) Post & Courier who noted they currently had a part-time employee filling a previously full-time position with no plans to change that and that they were generally short-staffed.

Whenever I’m out speaking about why companies should engage Web 2.0 tools, I always list the declining impact of traditional media as a reason. Fewer and fewer people are paying attention. And I’m always asked: Do you think newspapers will cease to exist?

No, not any time soon. There is still a place for a hand-held paper amongst my generation and older; however, traditional media is going to have to readjust and find its place in the new Internet-driven world. It is not so different from when TV news came to the forefront and afternoon papers went under. They have to adjust and they are working hard to extend their Internet presence and meet readers where they want their news. It will be interesting to see how the chips fall.

What do you think? Will newspapers be a thing of the past?