Last month, I did a blog entry on how newspapers were dying.

Now we have Gawker reporting that San Francisco Chronicle journalists are talking to investors about buying the paper and restructuring it into a non-profit, with the journalists chipping in some money themselves.

Sounds fine but it does raise the question as to why anyone would do it. The newspaper industry needs a complete makeover, and unless the investors are prepared to put in more to reshape the Chronicle they will be wasting their money.

To get some idea what's possible, check this CNET report on how the New York Times has set up an R&D lab that's looking at a system that keeps track of what users have read digitally across all devices, or systems that integrate Times' content in readers' homes, and in particular, on their Internet-connected TVs. It's an interesting report and left me feeling more optimistic about the future of newspapers. But only if they're prepared to embrace the future.