I was just at Cleveland.com, and I was looking at all the new features the site has launched recently.

Certainly, the new features are upgrades over what used to be there. The new design is a step forward. The site, however, is a hodgepodge in many ways.

A lot of Cleveland.com doesn’t make sense. Different sections have different designs. The site is hard to navigate.

The search engine is worthless and rarely returns relevant results. The UI still needs a lot of work. It’s hard for me to quickly find the content I want.

And the homepage design suffers from being overly crowded. It’s a prime example of the Wall of News. Plus, the homepage doesn’t have a clear graphical focus or main story.

I couldn’t help but think that if Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer could start from scratch they would do things differently. There is no way that Cleveland.com is the site they ultimately want. But it’s the site they have because of years of legacy code and legacy decisions.

I hate to see the past holding back news organizations on the Web. The Web demands agile development and quick decision making. I assure you that Web-only news organizations will not fall into the same trappings as traditional news organizations.

The pace of innovation on the Web from most news organizations feels very print like. It’s OK to tweak a print design every 5-10 years, but a Web site needs continual R&D. Not only do Web sites require new features, but they also require that those new features fit into existing designs and frameworks (Cleveland.com feels so broken and disjointed at times).

The Las Vegas Sun blew things up and went from being a zero to a hero in a matter of months. You can say all you want about how they have a unique JOA or about how they aren’t making money right now off their Web site. That doesn’t matter.

There is nothing stopping Cleveland.com, The Plain Dealer and their Advance Publications overlords from making Cleveland.com into a very good site.

Nothing, except bureaucratic inertia. Nothing, except being beholden to yesterday’s decisions. Nothing, except old media think.

And, to be honest, I do not have faith that either Cleveland.com or Advance have the right Web talent and minds in place to turn things around. Maybe most news organizations can’t do everything that the Sun is doing, but every organization could adopt their aggressive Web mindset. Every news organization could embrace agile development.

It is the mindset of The Las Vegas Sun that really stands out. It is mindset that is killing this industry. There is too much can’t do attitude and not enough can do.

One can’t help but wonder if all the legacy editors who cut their teeth in print simply do not understand the pace of the Web. Print was a monopoly. It never demanded innovation — agile or not.

Innovation can start from the bottom, but mindset starts from the top. When a high school Web site is better than most “professional” news Web sites, you know the problem is mental, not financial or technical. If it seems like I’m rambling, it’s because this is getting depressing.

How many news organizations can honestly say that the Web products they have right now are the products they would want to make if they could start over? If the answer is no, why not start over?

What do you have to lose?

The real question is why he stuck around so long.

If fact, I don’t understand why any star print columnist or beat reporter doesn’t just start his or her own Web site. The Dallas Cowboys Blog for The Dallas Morning news can get hundreds of thousands of page views in one day. And that’s without a really good beat blog that really harnesses the power of the Web and social networking.

Imagine the possibilities. More on that in a minute.

Mariotti threw a few bombs on his way out, including about how he believes that newspapers are dying and how the future is on the Web. He is absolutely correct, however.

First, let’s look at Mariotti’s claim that newspapers are dying. Vin Crosbie believes more than half of today’s 1,439 daily newspapers in the U.S. won’t exist by the end of the next decade. In fact, the Sun-Times is a prime candidate to not be around much longer.

The Sun-Times Media Group was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. That doesn’t happen for being too good. It happens when a stock falls below the minimum trading value.

Despite what many curmudgeons would like to believe and like to have you believe, newspapers are not in a cyclical down period. Many are about to be down for the count.

For a sports columnist like Mariotti, there is little incentive to stay in print. He can make more money in other mediums that have less turmoil.

Many of the best sports writers like Rick Reilly are being bought up by ESPN (for $3 million a year), Yahoo!, CBS Sportsline and other Web sites. Before the Web, print — especially newspapers– was just about the only place for a star columnist to work.

Because of the monopolies that newspapers had, columnists were at the mercy of newspapers. That has flipped with the Web. Now anyone can be their own publisher and become successful like Michael Arrington of TechCrunch.

I’m sure Mariotti was well paid by newspaper standards, but those standards aren’t very high (and just a fraction of Reilly’s new salary). Frankly, the standards of most newspaper Web sites aren’t very high either, which is one major reason why Mariotti left the Sun-Times:

To showcase your work … you need a stellar Web site and if a newspaper doesn’t have that, you can’t be stuck in the 20th century with your old newspaper.

If I were Mariotti, I’d start my own Web site and post my work there. Yes, he could go work for ESPN full time like many of his former print colleagues have, but then you are at the mercy of ESPN, which is notorious for being overbearing and controlling. Or he could join an online-only sports site.

But why bother? If I were Mariotti, I’d focus on building my own brand with my own Web site and social networking presence. With the right technical help, he could have a kick-ass WordPress installation, where he can publish his latest thoughts about whatever, whenever. He could also embed video clips, build interactive features, have a weekly podcast, interact with users and do all sorts of things that he couldn’t do at the Sun-Times.

Plus, his Web presence would be very 21st century, unlike the Sun-Times. If you’re a columnist, imagine a site that has all of your posts tagged, so that users can quickly and easily discover content. One of the most frustrating aspects of newspaper Web sites is the disarray that is their archives.

And most newspaper Web sites are unsearchable. So many page views are lost because of these technical deficiencies that a basic, free WordPress install doesn’t have.

I’d also start a Twitter account and begin building a fan base with strong user interaction. I would, of course, interact with users on my beat blog as well. Then I’d look into other social networking opportunities.

This is what Mariotti and any sports writer needs to get started: a laptop with a Web cam for video columns, a smart phone, a beat blog (WordPress is a great option), Google Apps for mail and word processing, a Twitter account and Viddler/YouTube and Seesmic accounts to put that Web cam to use.

He probably already has a laptop and smart phone. The Web technology I listed is all free. The only things that will cost money are the domain name (about $10 a year), hosting (might only be hundreds a year) and probably some technical and consulting help to set this all up.

Mariotti, if you’re reading this, start a beat blog. Don’t wait.

We have already seen a lot of top sports writing talent leave for ESPN.com, Yahoo! Sports, CBS Sportsline and others in the past year. I think the exodus of sports writing talent from traditional print publications is just beginning, because not only can big-name sports writers leave for online publications, but they can also now easily and cheaply start their own Web sites.

The idea that news organizations should charge for basic content on the Web is repugnant.

It’s a losing proposition. It’s a terrible, terrible idea. And journalism is filled with terrible ideas right now.

But that doesn’t mean news organizations can’t charge for content. Far from it. Rather, news organizations need to create upsell features.

For years, I have paid to be an ESPN Insider. Insider content is not for casual sports fans, which make up the majority of ESPN.com’s users. But that doesn’t mean some users, like myself, aren’t willing to pay for a premium product.

One of my favorite Insider features are scouting reports. I have access to scouting reports on every single football player in the NFL (and other reports for other sports). For many people that may sound pretty stupid, but it’s a pretty cool feature for me. ESPN also has in-depth trend data for every football game, and I can get AccuScore predictions not only for the outcome, but how each team should do running the ball, passing the ball and play on defense.

Content is one upsell area. Another could be business listings. For instance, a local site should offer every business and restaurant a free listing but also offer premium features for a price.

Want to be able to upload coupons each week to our Web site? Premium feature. Want an in-depth, easily changeable menu for your restaurant? Premium feature. Want a blog to interact with your customers? Premium feature.

Classifieds can be the same way too. Basic classifieds for individuals should be free, but we can still sell people on premium features. Want your listing to stand out with custom features, like Ebay offers? We’ll sell them to you.

Want your listing to show up at the top for a given search? Premium feature.

If we’re going to ask people for money, we have to create value. Basic content isn’t that. News organizations need to stop thinking of themselves as just journalism companies and start thinking of themselves as content companies.

Every news organization should have About.Com-like features for their areas. This evergreen content can be immensely useful for users. The history of an area, the best places to go, etc all should be covered.

New organizations also need to think of themselves as destinations. If you want to be a premium local site, you have to be THE destination that people want to go to. Journalism alone will not make you that destination.

Restaurant guides, business guides, kick-ass classifieds, maps and guides, evergreen content, etc are the keys to becoming a destination. Upselling does not mean offering bad basic products, but rather it means offering really good premium products that people and businesses are willing to pay for.

For years individual content producers in news organizations didn’t have an easy way to figure out how popular or useful their content was with people.

But with today’s advanced site analytics, content producers have unprecedented data about users and their surfing habits. I wrote a long post about this subject over at BeatBlogging.Org. Consider this post the Cliff Note’s version with a few added tidbits.

What makes this data so important?

With Web analytics, content creators like writers, bloggers, photographers, database developers, etc can find out which content is getting the most page views and visits and from where those visitors are coming from. Content creators can also find out which search terms most often land people on their content.

Analytics will allow for content producers to make content that is more appealing to their users. For a football beat, it might mean creating more previews and Q&A sessions and less feature stories. For an education blog, it might mean writing more about teachers’ issues and less about the school district as a whole.

It also might mean different kinds of content. Your users might prefer posts that are short and comprised of lists. My users might prefer longer paragraphs. The only way to understand what our individual users want is to track their browsing habits.

The timing of posts is also extremely critical, and this varies per beat per news organization:

In general, after lunch and after work are the two peak times for Web traffic. This, however, is not universal, and detailed Web analytics will allow content producers to know the peak times to release content on their Web sites. In fact, different beat blogs at the same paper might have different peak traffic times.

Now, not every news organization allows content producers access to this information. In fact, most may not, but the content producers I have spoken to almost uniformly say it has helped them do their jobs better. Every news organization worth anything already has detailed site analytics.

It doesn’t cost a company money to give more people access to this information, but site analytics can be complicated and hard to understand without training. Some newsrooms have come up with ways of getting around that.

Suzanne Yada said her newspaper, the Visalia Times-Delta, has a daily meeting at 3 p.m. to discuss traffic figures and which stories are getting the most page views. Ryan Sholin says at the last paper he worked at he sent out a daily “Top 5.” Sholin said, however, that bloggers had full access to their stats.

Whether a news organization gives access to this data to every content producer or whether a news organization has a meeting or e-mail to discuss Web traffic, it doesn’t matter. What ultimately matters is that news organizations give content producers vital information that will allow them to do their jobs better.

To all my blogging readers, could you imagine blogging blind? That’s essentially what many news organizations are asking their content producers to do.

If your company doesn’t allow content producers access to this information, I have a question for you. Why doesn’t your company give individual content producers information about the content they produce?

Debra J. Sanders of the dieing San Francisco Chronicle recently wrote an inane column about why the death of newspapers will be the death of us all.

And I quote:

Blah, blah, blah. You need us (newspaper people, who only write for print) to keep democracy going. Blah, blah, blah we made the mistake of giving away news on the Web. Blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah, people have to pay for news. Blah, blah, blah, you all should be ashamed of the fact that you no longer subscribe to newspapers. Blah, blah, blah.

You want to know why the Chronicle is losing boatloads of money? Because they waste money on columns like this!

Now to debunk the utter crap like Sanders wrote. First, newspapers make money off of ads, not subscriptions and newsstand sales. Get that straight.

I pay less than $0.50 per Sunday issue of The Washington Post. It is delivered to my apartment. Do you really think that huge newspapers, complete with Sunday magazines, delivered to me with record gas prices really cost less than $0.50? Are you out of your mind?

It’s the ads within that make money. And the real problem is that most newspaper ad and business staffs don’t know how to sell ads online. They completely and utterly suck at that part of their jobs.

And why should they be good at selling ads online? Most ad reps are paid heavily by commission. And what ads bring the biggest commission? Huge, national print ads!

What kinds of ads don’t work so well on Web sites? Huge, national banner ads! What kinds of ads have been the back bone of newspapers for years? Classifieds!

And what have newspapers really, really sucked at on the Web? Making quality classified ad systems for the Web. This isn’t rocket science.

Craigslist came about because newspapers willfully neglected classified advertising on the Web. Remember that.

You know why most newspapers are getting crushed on the Web? You really want to know why? Because most employees at newspapers — especially business employees — just don’t get it. They don’t get it.

And you know what? They aren’t going to get it. It’s not going to happen.

The newspaper business needs fresh ideas. It needs people who are willing to take risks and think outside of the box. Writing columns like Sanders does that blame readers for the fall of newspapers is the worst possible use of our time and resources.

If I was the publisher of the Chronicle, my first money-saving order of business would be to fire one Debra J. Sanders.

Because TwentySomethingJournalist.com just launched.

You know what the worst kind of journalist is? A twenty-something journalist.

You know what kind of journalist doesn’t respect the newspaperman myth? A twenty-something journalist.

You know what kind of journalist doesn’t respect the Paper God? A twenty-something journalist.

You know what kind of journalist is ruining journalism? A twenty-something journalist.

What will the kids these days think of next? A site dedicated to finding innovative ways of modernizing journalism? God Lord.

I received an e-mail today from a reader who had a story to share about being stifled by corporate and management. The good news for journalism is that this person isn’t down on journalism itself, just some journalism companies. Unfortunately, this is not a unique story in today’s journalism world:

I’m beginning to liken my job to that of working at McDonald’s. It’s your basic fast-food fare that feeds the same stuff everyday, and we’re stifled by corporate and management to do things their way without fail. It’s the same culture with a few people who want to do better.

During a recent natural disaster the site did very with direct traffic, garnering more than 1 million page views. The site normally does about 200,000 a day. 1 million sounds pretty good, but it could have been more (updates on inclement weather are big traffic drivers):

Anyway, my boss (pretty much there for the paycheck and hours) decides not to stream our TV coverage because “he wanted to have our helicopter coverage without our station’s bug). People come to our site during work and they sure don’t have TVs in their offices, so why wouldn’t they expect to have our breaking news coverage streaming, too. We’ve done it for every other event where I’ve been working. That takes me back to my analogy. I feel like my bosses were satisfied because they got an extra Big Mac in their combo when I feel we could have had a steak.

Note: I have edited this post at the request of the original author to protect their identity better.

More and more talented journalists (often young) are leaving journalism for other industries.

Not because they fear being laid off or fired, but because the culture at newspapers (especially newspaper corporations) doesn’t allow for the kind of innovation necessary to save newspapers. Case in point: Braden Nicholson left the Indianapolis Star because corporate knew how to ruin every good idea:

You know what is a bummer about this? When INTake was first launched, the young men and women working there were so stoked that some of them actually slept on the office floor rather than take a break at home. It used to be fashionable for older journalists to bitch about young reporters not having “fire in the belly.” Well, these kids had fire in the belly.

Braden said it best. Corporate doused the fire.

Newspapers need that enthusiasm and fire to save themselves. This is do-or-die time for newspapers. This is not the time for red tape and bureaucracy.

Perhaps even more illuminating than Nicholson leaving journalism for another industry, is the comments left on the Gannett Blog. The first comment — anonymous, of course — has all the hallmarks of a curmudgeon that is shouting down new ideas (the kind of newsroom cancers that are killing newspapers):

Many of us at Indy are pleased to see Braden leave the Star. He was an arrogant kid who believed that he was smarter than the rest of us here.

Yes, at 29, Nicholson is certainly a kid. Another classy comment that wreaks of a curmudgeon:

IndyStar is full of a bunch of punks who think they are all innovators. I left there recently and always believed these little shit-stains were all immature.

On the other hand, we have comments about why people left Gannett because of curmudgeons:

I left the company a number of months ago and for good reason. If I were 20 years older, I would have been just fine, but because I wasn’t, the EE thought it necessary to let me know I wouldn’t be “respected.” (The same guy who no one respects in that newsroom).

Looks like this poison spreads in all Gannett newsrooms. I always thought Greenville was just unique. This attitude toward young people (aka future editors) will be the death knell of Gannett. Eventually the last 50-year-old will leave and there will be no one left to take their place.

I have heard of Gannett having cancerous newsrooms before. My girlfriend left a mid-size daily Gannett newspaper because of the newsroom culture (ageism and sexism abound). And I’ve heard it from other people about other Gannett newspapers.

This isn’t a unique Gannett problem, but corporate has to get its act together. Each newsroom should be a laboratory for innovation. That means corporate has to stop inhibiting innovation.

Yes, it is a tough time for journalism graduates — or anyone looking for a journalism job — but there are jobs available for people with desirable skills.

Recent journalism graduate Kyle Hansen just accepted a job at the Las Vegas Sun. More noteworthy, is that in this terrible time for journalism companies and the economy, he had interviews in five different states with newspapers. Five different states.

What skills does Hansen have that most recent journalism graduates don’t? Well, for starters, he blogs. It doesn’t have to be the best or most popular blog, but having a blog shows potential employers that Hansen is willing to try out new tools and that he has an understanding of the power of blogging.

Hansen also has multimedia skills, which include some knowledge of video editing, Flash and Web design. No one is saying that Hansen needs to be an expert in any of those areas, but the simple fact that he is inquisitive is a major plus for employers.

Not only can he write (which every journalism graduate should be able to do), but Hansen also has Web and multimedia skills. People like him will find employment.

The average, run-of-the-mill journalism graduate will have a tough time finding employment, especially at a desirable destination like the Sun, which is arguably the most desirable journalism destination in the U.S. right now. But journalists with modern skill sets are still in demand.

And it’s never too late to update your skill set.

Timothy Kennedy, the publisher of The Morning Call in Allentown, Pa., announced 35-40 layoffs yesterday at the 110,000-circulation newspaper.

But that’s not the real lede for me. In the middle of his memo he writes, “More than ever our financial results reflect the broken business model of the past.”

I agree with him that the old business model that newspapers operated under is broken. Many people agree with that. What I don’t see, however, is a new business model in his memo.

All I see are layoffs. Oh, and, a closing of a few bureaus, and some crap about changing the zoning of the print editions.

But how does Kennedy plan on growing revenue? How does Kennedy plan on monetizing the Web better? How does Kennedy plan on making The Morning Call a more relevant news source in the 21st century?

So, what’s the new business model of the future, besides laying off 40 employees? Oh I know, laying off 40 more 6 months from now. Got it.

Layoffs are not a business model.