The newspaper industry is in collective fret mode about how it’s going to survive in the future, especially as print takes a dive because of falling circulation and crummy advertising trends.
 
Sometimes the answer comes out of the clear blue sky — or the cloudy, gray one. Seattle’s two city dailies, the Times and the Post-Intelligencer, both were unable to get printed editions to their readers’ hands on Friday after a big storm knocked out power at the plant where both papers are printed.
 
With paper getting all wet, the publishers instead focused on their Web sites, which have been updated all day long with storm reports, photos and other news of the day. For people who miss the actual look of the paper, both sites offer links to their electronic editions. (The Times is here, and the PI here.) The strategy begs the issue of whether publishing net editions serve local readers who have no electricity. Radio reports would have been a more service-minded approach.
 
Then again the same thing happened to the Times-Picayune in New Orleans during the Katrina onslaught and they won a Pulitzer. But they’re back to printing the paper the old-fashioned way.