Sleeping giant Chicago Sun-Times makes big changes; Canon video camera rebates!; Podcasting doesn’t pay the bills, yet; St. Pete’s *tbt continues to grow

Chicago Sun-Times making some big changes, going more local, web enhanced, P.M. Print edition
Sun-Times making big changes. Going even more local. Chicagopedia. Integrating Centerstage entertainment into the print. P.M. Download and print edition. E-paper. “jump2web” integration. More info:

• Video with the publisher rappin’ about the changes
  
• Sun-Times Resurrects Afternoon Edition
• ‘Chicago Sun-Times’ to Debut Redesign

The Future of News: How to Survive the New Media Shift
“Reading paper is an extraordinary experience. Discussing news online is highly addictive. If news organisations manage to leverage and connect both powers you have a chance to escape oblivion and re-occupy one of the many future centers of public attention.”

Don’t Quit Your Day Job, Podcasters
“While there has been an explosion of shows over the past couple of years, offering everything from advice on how to manage your money to Italian lessons, podcasting’s business prospects are just developing. The share of who listen to audio downloads from the Web has grown only slightly in the past year, to 13% from 11%…”

List of businesses newspapers should buy
“Newspapers should be buying their online competitors. But too often when newspaper’s open their wallets it’s to invest in trendy gadget sites (ones that don’t produce content but offer a nifty tool for reorganizing it).”

Washingtonpost.com Wins Peabody Award for ‘Being a Black Man’ Site
The online series noted that black men in America who number over 18 million, “often feel caught between individual achievements and collective failures, defined more by their images in popular culture than their lived experiences.”

Wild guesses for new Cubs owners
Red Eye speculates and swings at the Sun-Times.

St. Petersburg Times *tbt print youth tab continues growing
Speaking of Red Eye, St. Pete’s Red Eye clone is growing nicely. “The daily publication [celebrated its first birthday on March 6] and circulation figures are beating all expectations. tbt* has grown distribution by more than 100,000 copies per week, culminating in 356,000 copies distributed Feb. 12-16.”

MultimediaShooter.com Contest Winners
Interesting work here. But man, I sure would like to be able to watch half of these videos without waiting 32894723984723894723894327823 years for them to load.

Zell on the future, dealmaking and bad press
Zell seems like a pretty good guy from what I’ve read/seen. He definitely has his act together more than many newspaper leaders. Check out this quote: “I use that word ‘relevant’ and I’ll be the first to tell you I don’t know what it means other than, in effect, ultimately just like anybody, you have customers, and some way or another we have to find a way how to service them. I don’t have an opinion as to what you write, believe it or not, other than what you write has to be truthful and relevant. And if it is, then I think the customer is there for you, and that translates into viable businesses.”