From CP via CBC.ca (May 7):

Readers appreciate good content and will always pay for newspapers, but only the strongest brands will survive the decades ahead by adapting with the times and giving people what they want, Thomson Reuters (TSX:TRI) deputy chairman Geoffrey Beattie said Wednesday.

The newspaper industry needn't worry about a future when readers demand free content because people value a good product and the relationship they build with a brand, Beattie told an audience at a joint conference of the Canadian Newspaper Association and the Canadian Community Newspapers Association.

"Everybody in the world doesn't want everything for nothing," Beattie said, adding that readers will pay for the best brands of newspapers known for their reliability and integrity.

"By paying for something and getting something of value, you're differentiating yourself and you're forming a relationship."

Deeper in the story, Beattie paints it as a packaging problem.

"We haven't come up with a way of presenting the content of a newspaper in a way that makes it attractive for people to pick it up and start reading it," he said.

"I don't think people's appetite for expertized, editorialized, high-value added, interesting content ... is actually going to decline."

So then what, exactly, are we seeing happening to newspapers, particularly in the United States?