Below I have a lengthy post on the future of the newspaper business and how, in light of difficult times all over the country, they can re-calibrate their efforts to compete for the billions of dollars in online advertising.

Marc Weingarten of The New Republic has a profile of legendary magazine editor Clay Felker and notes, “Clay Felker’s most significant contribution was inventing the concept of service journalism, the magazine as proto-search engine.”

He continues, “Felker was the first editor to think about New York like a sports fan (his father, it should be noted, was managing editor of the Sporting News, and Felker himself covered sports as a young reporter). And like any self-respecting fan, Felker had an urge to gather up all of the crucial data and taxonomize it, order it properly, and then sell it as the absolute final word.”

Felker was working in the 60’s and 70’s long before the Internet. But one can sense from this piece that he was anticipating the needs that readers have today. But unlike then, they flock to Google, as I noted below, in an effort to get the kind of information they want.

As I suggest, if newspapers want to compete for the billions in advertising dollars they’ll learn from Google and from Mr. Felker.

UPDATE: Tom Wolfe remembers Felker in this week’s issue of New York magazine.