JaySmall.com/old

Links with longer shelf life and less cholesterol than fried butter, as if that's hard:

• Bakersfield paper may shutter community sites: Or may not, depending on which local executive you believe, and which lines you read between, in this PaidContent report.

First, Tim Rutten makes the case that saving "premium" journalism means an act of Congress -- specifically, an antitrust exemption so papers can collude on paid content pricing on their Web sites. Then, the reaction.

Steve Outing, for example:

I often say a key goal of any Web site redesign should be to make the next redesign easier. Given the rapid pace of redesign launches among newspaper.com sites in recent weeks, it appears some last-generation design work was aimed toward that goal.

OK, if you count niche brands, naplesnews.com represents maybe site 6 or 7 in Scripps' redesign rollout. But it is our fourth newspaper market to get the new look and underpinnings, as of last evening. And the first in a market where we could legitimately ghost a palm tree and pier into the background.

Don't let Steve Yelvington's excellent rebuttal (started to say "analysis," but it's more direct than that) to the American Press Institute "Newspaper Economic Action Plan" pass without due consideration.

After wrapping up his 10-part series on what local newspapers should do to survive (he rolled up all the recommendations in one post), John Temple posted a wise reply to questions I asked him by e-mail last week.

My questions, in a nutshell: What about photojournalism? Can it be considered a strategic asset for local newspapers?

John wrote me back, but then expanded on his reply in the blog post. Good advice abounds these days on his blog, as the post exemplifies: