General Motors, newspapers and newsagents

Scott Karp has written an excellent piece about what newspapers could learn from the General Motors decision to transform their business around producing a commercially viable electric car. The connection between the GM reinvention and newspapers is covered in this paragraph:

All the talk about “saving newspapers” is focused on finding new business models to keep doing what they’ve always done — which is like GM looking for a new business model to sell the kinds of cars they made in the 50s and 60s. What the newspaper industry, if it is to survive as such, must find is a radical new value proposition for news — something so audacious, so self-evidently valuable that, if they can find a way to deliver it, would lead to the rebirth of newspaper journalism.

The same could be said for newsagents. Our future is dependent on us finding new customers based on new products and services. It is based on us reinventing ourselves locally and nationally.  This is what our industry associations ought to be thinking about and demonstrating leadership on.  Developing, debating and creating The Newsagency of the Future is the most important mission newsagent associations could have.  Unfortunately, I don’t hear anything from them about this.