“Many newspaper executives, paring costs and badly misreading public appetites, have cut back dramatically on all types of public-affairs reporting,” they write. “Newspapers once operated under a mandate to provide the kinds of news that citizens need to function in a democratic society, but many corporations have changed that mandate.”

News organizations across the world have imitated one another, each trying to draw more attention to its product. The style typically involves flashy graphics, photo-heavy layouts, short and “punchy” articles, and lots of celebrity and entertainment news.

Nowhere is this approach more evident than in the so-called “commuter dailies,” Elysse Zarek writes in the Ryerson Review of Journalism. She says the editors of free newspapers such as Metro and 24 Hours are “convinced they have a formula that will capture the picky 18- to 34-year-old audience. The result is a dumbed-down mélange of bare-bones headline news, full-colour celebrity shots, and lifestyle columns they say are just what the target demographic needs.”

It’s not exactly public-service journalism, Zarek continues, but “readers seem to like this combination, and the papers have circulations to prove it. 24 Hours snags 259,000 readers a day, while Metro boasts a readership of 376,000 papers a day. More than 70 per cent of Metro's readers in the 18- to 24-year-old range only read Metro, says editor-in-chief Jodi Isenberg.”

Others aren’t so convinced. Former St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist M.W. Guzy pans the newspaper’s recent decision to re-invent itself in a similar vein. In the St. Louis Journalism Review, he writes: “Journalism’s answer to New Coke, this remodelling job was the latest attempt of the editorial staff to get people who don't like to read to subscribe to the newspaper. So far, it isn’t working.”

“This lighter, airy, upbeat, fun format is presumably going to lure the MTV crowd into once and for all forgetting about Kurt Cobain and taking up the joys of literacy,” Guzy continues. “It will accomplish this formidable task by de-emphasizing writing and expanding graphics. Good luck …”

While many large news organizations seem to be moving toward this style, some small-town newspapers are succeeding by doing precisely the opposite. In the Columbia Journalism Review, Candy Cooper finds that, with a circulation of just 25,000, the Greeley Tribune in Greeley, Colo., has boosted its daily sales by running in-depth articles about serious subjects.

The small newspaper “has so far ignored the reflexive, quick-hit, grab-the-young formula that is handed down by typical newspaper consultants,” Cooper writes. “The Tribune relies instead on its gut.”

“The Tribune’s megastories may seem ruinous in an industry already in circulation freefall. But the newspaper’s approach offers evidence to the contrary … the Tribune is one of the only dailies in Colorado whose circulation has slowly, steadily climbed over a decade.”

Julia Cass of the American Journalism Review and Michael Shapiro of the Columbia Journalism Review tell similar stories of success at small-town newspapers across the United States, where the news organizations try to be more than just money-making operations. Like the fire station or the town hall, they are integral parts of the community, and that’s what keeps them alive.

Shapiro extols the approach of Bill Hanna, the long-time editor of the Mesabi Daily News in the town of Virgina, Minn., in running his small newspaper. He says that by sticking to local issues, reporting on them thoroughly, and commenting on them with no fear, Hanna “had stumbled onto a path that might once again make papers a must rather than a should read.”

Of course, Hanna’s newspaper has the advantage of being the only one in town. With no one around to scoop you or to out-sensationalize you, it’s easier to stick to high-quality, public-service journalism. But Shapiro suggests that even large news organizations can learn from the Mesabi Daily News. Instead of imitating the latest flashy approach to grab more readers, newspapers might better stand out in the sea of competition by putting out a fearlessly unique product.

For what I had detected in the many stories I read, as well as in the commentary by Hanna, was a quality that has become frighteningly rare in newspapers: "a personality,” he writes. “Of course, every newspaper assumes it has a personality, just as all people assume they have personalities, too. Both are right. But that does not mean they are interesting personalities. Sometimes, oftentimes, they can be quite dull.”