BulletProofBlog the blog on crisis communications

After a 2008 in which readership and advertising revenues were down and layoffs and bankruptcy filings were up, it' s hard to imagine that 2009 could be any worse for the newspaper industry. But that' s precisely what some experts are predicting unless print journalism finds a way to compete with, or compliment, a new media revolution that has forever altered the way we get our news.

2009 is gearing up to be the year of digital media dominance. Bloggers outnumber traditional journalists by a factor of more than 100 to 1, digital media news sites are out polling most traditional brick and mortar news outlets, Web hits outweigh traditional media placements in terms of effectiveness, and being found on Google and discussed on Twitter and Facebook has become more important for nearly every brand than being listed in the Yellow Pages.

One would think that all of this would be music to the ears of new media titans like Google CEO Eric Schmidt. But in a recent interview with CNNMoney.com, he stated that the collapse of traditional papers would be "a real tragedy in the sense that journalism is a central part of democracy."

The good news for the traditional members of the fourth estate is that Schmidt seems willing to put Google' s massive resources behind an effective strategy to shore up America' s ailing newsrooms and get them back on their feet - the bad news according to Schmidt is that "we don' t yet have that strategy."

Schmidt' s entire interview is a worthwhile read.