I feel like I’ve seen other articles recently about how newspapers are finally picking up on online trends. This one from the Economist — More Media, Less News — is a good one. It summarizes some of the latest trends, and offers some rays of hope for our struggling industry, though not many.

Here’s something I hadn’t heard before:

Gannett, theworld’s biggest newspaper group, is trying to make its journalism morelocal. It has invested in “mojos”—mobile journalists with wirelesslaptops who permanently work out of the office encamped in communityhubs.

One question: what the hell is a “community hub” if it’s not an office? Is it, like, a shack in the woods somewhere? I mean, it’s gotta at least have internet access, right? Am I a “mojo,” since I often work from coffeeshops and libraries and places that have wi-fi access? I prefer the term backpack journalist.

Seven Days’ deputy publisher and co-owner Cathy Resmer is a writer, editor and advocate for local journalism. She works in the paper’s Burlington office and lives vicariously through the reporters while raising money to pay them. Cathy started at...