Old grocery store, new marketplace

Today seems to be a day for analogies about grocery stores and the news(paper) industry.
Analogy 1. This morning, I stumbled across a comment by Vin Crosbie (thanks to Tom Pellegrene at The Journal Gazette for recording it from last month’s KDMC Leadership Conference).
Crosbie likened the traditional newspaper business to a grocery store that is trying to sell bags already full of items (not necessarily of the choosing of the consumer.) That analogy is both brilliant and scary to a traditional newspaper person like me. It goes to the heart of the challenge: The mass audience with its mass consumption of the traditionally prescribed diet is ebbing away in favor of customized news and information. (That is not the same thing as saying the appetite for good journalism is waning.)
2. This afternoon, I noticed a David Cohn post about the confusion he experienced at Safeway trying to find his two favorite cereals on a veritable wall of product:

“I was almost at a standstill. As if the overabundance of information caused my brain to shut down. Later I laughed at myself and wondered if this is how my mother feels when she is online, bombarded with colors, slogans and icons when really all she wanted was a specific piece of information, ‘what happened in West L.A. yesterday.’
“Traditionally news organizations (newspapers) were how people would find the information they wanted. If you wanted to know what happened in the world you either turned on the TV or checked the headlines in your morning newspaper. Google has them beat. It’s too late to try and become the aisle sign (the first thing people go to). But there is still room to become the helpful employee roaming the aisle. That’s where news organizations can still make their mark.”

I like the idea of the helpful employee because it reflects an ideal of traditional journalism: A mission of serving the community. So let’s extend the idea. Here’s my analogy for the future:
3. The former grocery store becomes a local specialty shop, offering unique and high quality products. The shopkeepers also provide a referral service—if they don’t have a product, they can tell the customer where to find it.
For the organization formerly known as the newspaper, this means finding out what other organizations—nonprofits, citizen sites, other online publications and (yes) even businesses —are providing, linking to it and putting it in context. More importantly, it means shaping the news and information the traditional organization produces to cover gaps in the community news fabric rather than trying to cover it all. It also means being nimble enough to shift inventory (topics covered) as the need arises.
Is there a business model in this? I’m not sure. I do know this: Right now, I live in a very small town (maybe 4,000 people) and I shop local even though prices are higher because a) I want to support local business and b) if a merchant doesn’t have something, she can almost always tell me what other shop has it. That’s value.
Please add your thoughts (more analogies always welcome) in the comments.

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