Where was this when I were a lad?

When, oh when, are people going to turn all of this web 2.0 wondrousness towards the good old-fashioned dead-tree newspaper?

While trying to scale the Bloglines mountain of stuff I've bookmarked but not read, I came across a post by PF Bentley who points out that you wouldn't let your IT department choose your stills camera so why would you let them choose your video gear?

Quite right -- but let's take it a step further. Why should editorial types put up with the content management systems, or word processing systems or page makeup systems thrust upon them from above. I've used quite a few in my career (I find subs tend to have a bit more experience and aptitude for editorial systems than reporters, but feel free to weigh in) and most of them are rubbish. They simply are not designed to be used by or for people who need to quickly edit text, write headlines or crop pictures.

Why can't purchasing managers, or managers in general, make the not substantial leap to understand that the faster we can knock the stuff out, the more time there is to write the killer intro, the grab-you-by-the-collar head or crop the "jesus, would you look at that" image.

In short my question is this -- why is the internet awash with tips, advice and consultants' blogs on "THE ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL STUFF YOU NEED TO KNOW TO MAKE YOUR NEWSPAPER KICK ASS ON THE WEB" when most of the people responsible for running the paper don't know their ass from their elbow when it comes to QPS over Hermes or Tera over DTI. And that's just purchasing the damned things, let alone setting up a workflow that works for your particular newsroom.

I could take this scrying over the future of a 10- to 15-year-old medium a lot more seriously if the guys who claim to have all the answers would take their load of crystal balls and apply it to improving the form and function of a 500-year-old medium.

Don't get me wrong -- Mr Bentley is right. We need to choose the tools of our trade. We're the ones who will be using them, after all.

Just don't forget who (for now, at least) pays the bills -- we are as sick of shoddy equipment bought by unqualified personnel as the shiny, new videojocks are. So how about a list of what the not-too-bright newspaper exec should be doing, and what equipment he/she needs, to make the newspaper kick ass?