Four today

1. In a semi-secret conference last week, newspaper execs at the American Press Institute looked at ways to start charging for online content. Nieman Lab got hold of the official report. Nieman Lab

2. "Readers" is too passive. We're all "users" now. Ad Age

3. The Great Connecticut Alternative Weekly Outsourcing Experiment - three alt weeklies in Connecticut decide to test how an edition written by Indian journalists compares to home grown. Hartford Advocate

4. Robert Rector ponders a Pew poll that finds Republicans are happier than Democrats. Robert Rector

Four in the morning

1. The inaugural edition of the Santa Clarita Valley Independent is out today. SCV Talk columnist Jeff Wilson takes note:

It’s been a long time since I felt excitement over a newspaper.

Matter of fact, I don’t remember the last time I felt that way about a newspaper, or more accurately, about the state of the newspaper industry. For years now we’ve gotten used to newspapers downsizing, laying off, even closing all around us, and it’s been downright depressing.

But not today. Today we got a brand new newspaper, and how many communities in America can say that?

(h/t LA Observed)

2. Census data show a huge decline in Mexican immigration into the United States. New York Times

3. Budgets woes are rattling cages across the state (SJMN). Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to lay off 5,000 workers from the state rolls (SacBee), LAUSD teachers protest over pink slips outside district headquarters (LA Times) and Calbuzz lines up buyers for the coming California state fire sale (Calbuzz).

4. Nieman Lab takes a look at newspaper advertising 2.0 at the New York Times. Neiman Lab

Will newspapers hit the print button?

Maybe newspapers subscribers really will embrace the concept of becoming their own "editor and publisher" and will gladly print out their customized newspaper at home via a special printer given/sold to them by the local paper (the MediaNews concept).

But that seems about as likely to succeed as a McDonald's franchise that offered to deliver to your home a special microwave and the raw ingredients to make a Big Mac. Customers may like to hear "have it your way," but they also want to be sure the burger they get tastes and looks like a Big Mac and they still want someone else to prepare it for them.

(Yes, I'm comparing customized newspapers to fast food. It seems an appropriate metaphor.)

But what if the newspaper had a massive digital printer that would allow it to customize a paper for subscribers, a paper that would still be delivered to the subscribers doorstep - potentially several times a day - and would still have all the dependable markings and layout of the paper they subscribed to?

The Dutch firm Océ has unveiled a printer that could make this possible. As Martin Langeveld at Nieman points out, this would require an investment by executives who want reporters to buy their own pens and notebooks at a time when conventional wisdom-makers are calling print a dinosaur. It's possible a few of the big companies - NYT, WSJ, WaPo - will give it a try at their local papers and then we'll see if it holds any promise.