I don’t believe print is dead.

Far from it. I just believe, however, that most print products are trying to compete with online products. The fundamental problem with most print products is that they are trying to do it all (especially breaking news), instead of concentrating on what they do best — analysis pieces and enterprise stories.

Print can be a great medium when it concentrates on its strengths. The Economist does a fantastic job of this. It is not trying to break news — print can no longer do that — but rather it is trying to take a look back at the news and provide context.

Too many print products want to be a recap of yesterday’s news. Anyone who truly follows the news has already seen and heard the big news. Smart print products don’t try to outdo the Internet and mobile — that’s a losing proposition.

I subscribe to National Geographic, and it works really well as a print product because it is filled with in-depth enterprise and analysis pieces (and much of what I read in NG I don’t regularly come across in other news outlets). It’s the very kind of content that makes perfect sense in print. I don’t like reading long stories on my computer (let alone mobile device), and it’s those pieces that National Geographic does best.

I also subscribe to the Sunday Washington Post. It’s a good product. It’s not great, and it’s not an Economist or National Geographic-class print product.

I enjoy sitting down with the Sunday Post and reading the enterprise and feature stories in it, but it’s a still a product predicated on the other six days of the Post. There just aren’t that many analysis pieces, and it’s not the most serious piece of journalism.

That’s why I have a proposal. The Post (and all dailies) should make a second Sunday paper. Instead of being like the Sunday Post or Times, it should be like the Economist. This is an edition for people who get their news online, Monday-Saturday.

This edition’s mission is to provide analysis and context. It’s not going to be filled with light-weight feature stories. It’s not about the Sunday Comics or all those circulars.

This edition is about giving people a different level of news that they don’t get on a daily basis. It’s a serious edition. In fact, most Sunday editions are rather light and fluffy when it comes to news, and a lot of the stories really aren’t that important.

I firmly believe, however, this new, second Sunday edition is the future of printed products for newspaper organizations. It’s an edition that recognizes that people primarily get news online and know what is going on in the world. This edition is not a recap of old news — it’s providing depth, context and new information that gets missed in a rapid-fire news world.

I do think much like the Economist, this new edition would work better in magazine form. It’s a radical idea, but it’s the kind of idea that makes sense in an online world, and it’s the kind of product that would grow — not shrink — circulation.

One day this will be the future for smart newspapers, and eventually it replace the original Sunday paper. And then eventually it will be the only print product produced by newspapers.

I’m never going to subscribe to a daily newspaper again, but I would be the first to subscribe to a product like this. It’s a product that recognizes the reality on the ground and embraces change.

The Internet is the greatest thing to ever happen to journalism. When more journalists and publishers recognize that, we’ll start making print products that really matter and work for people.

People shouldn’t have to read the print edition to get the best, most in-depth coverage.

In fact, logic would dictate that a newspaper’s Web site would have more coverage due to the limitless nature of its medium and its ability to display so many different kinds of news and content. That’s what logic would tell you. That’s what 2008 would tell you.

And that’s what people want. They want Web products that kick ass. They want to get news on their computers and mobile devices — and they want it now.

And far be it for us to tell them, “No! You need to read the print edition to get all the news, because we haven’t figured out how to properly monetize our online content.” That’s the business staff’s problem, not editorials.

If that’s how we’re going to act, people are going to leave our Web sites and find new ones. Every day new competitors pop up. The Web makes it possible for anyone to join in the conversation.

Recently a managing editor of a small daily wrote a blog post that ended with:

So… to those local folks who only read us online, I have this to say: I’m sorry. Boy, are you missing out.

As you can imagine I commented on it. I said that people in her coverage area should be able to read her paper’s Web site and get all the information they need. In fact, the Web can be home to many projects — especially databases, multimedia, blogs, etc — that the print edition never could be.

I told her it was up to her paper to find a way to monetize their Web site. What spurred this post, however, wasn’t that exchange. It was the fact that my comment was deleted.

I’m not Sam Zell. I don’t go buccaneering around the Internet swearing up a storm. My comment was civil, thoughtful but it was critical to a point.

I strongly feel that Web products cannot be left behind. In fact, they should probably be the epicenter of news operation. Because I know that’s what people want, and I’m in the business of making products that people want.

In a comment to another poster the editor left this:

Our core product, the print edition, is obviously currently at the center of what we do.

Is that really what your readers want? But here’s the real moral of this story: You can’t control the conversation. This editor clearly thought she could.

My comment originally went up and another person commented on it, but my comment was later deleted. Many in the old-guard media are used to a time when they control the conversation — they get to select which letters to the editor get printed, who gets covered, etc.

But here’s the thing, this is 2008. I have a blog, I have Twitter and I’m not going to roll over every time some old-guard media person thinks they can silence my voice.

Because they can’t. They can’t silence any of us. That’s what the power of the Web is.

It’s a revolution.

And you can either join the social, two-way conversation that is the Web or you can be left behind. That’s your choice. But don’t try to force your old rules on our revolution.

Everyone finally has a voice. That’s a beautiful thing.