Nobody is laughing at the plight of newspapers and media publications nationwide.

That is what Laura Varon Brown, audience editor and columnist for the Detroit Free Press, told audience members Tuesday during a forum discussion about the future of Michigan newspapers.

She was one of four panelists to address the nearly-filled Charles V. Park Library Auditorium and to admit it is now time for change in the industry’s business strategy.

“This business model has been broken for 20 years, at least,” Varon Brown said. “I remember hearing about what (the Free Press) is doing; I thought, ‘Thank goodness we’re doing something.’”

In March, the Free Press cut its home delivery to three days a week and launched digitalfreepress.com, a Web site which allows readers the ability to read the print edition online.

Varon Brown said the change is about transitioning with readers, which largely has led to the charging of online content.

Tony Dearing, former editor of the Flint Journal and chief content leader for AnnArbor.com; Mike MacLaren, executive director of the Michigan Press Association; and Lonnie Peppler-Moyer, MPA president and head of Monroe Publishing, also spoke on Tuesday’s panel.

MacLaren said news Web sites have seen an audience growth of 63 percent in the last decade. It was something, he said, that should have been recognized years ago and has resulted in the decline in publications available.

“At one time, we had over 500 (daily) newspapers in Michigan,” he said. “Things have changed dramatically.”

The first step to the industry’s drop-off began more recently, Dearing said, as much of professionals’ transition has been catching up with the direction of readers and leaning forward with newer generations of audiences that prefer engaging with their news.

“For us as an industry, there’s not going to be one answer,” he said. “Right now everybody’s going to try something different.”

Even though the push for new media is the general direction news readers are going on, he said the need for the industry will never die.

“The need and demand of what we do has not changed one bit,” Dearing said. “I didn’t hear anybody say, ‘I don’t care about news.’”

But he said the movement toward news Web sites has generated a different set of skills needed for the job.

College graduates who may enter the workforce, Dearing said, should be accustomed to social and online media.

“I need people who want to work,” Dearing said, in recruiting writers for AnnArbor.com. “That work ethic is what’s going to get you into journalism and keep you there.”

Circumstances are not much different for those currently in the professional world either, McLaren compares the change in access of news to how people purchase and download music.

He said journalists always will be responsible for producing news, but the question is how money is best made.

“Rock stars are still making rock music,” MacLaren said. “I’m scared, but I’ve never had so much fun at my job. It’s an exciting time.”

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E-mail the author: Jackie Smith