A great post today from Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures and author of the well-known “A VC” blog. I have come to believe more and more that the media who survive/succeed will come to be a fusion of professional content — long form articles as Fred points out — and user-generated content. This is kind of what the local Examiners are doing, but Fred hits the nail on the head by emphasizing the need for curation:
If I was starting The Village Voice today, I would not print anything. I would not hire a ton of writers. I would build a website and a mobile app (or two or three). I would hire a Publisher and a few salespeople. I would hire an editor and a few journalists. And then I’d go out and find every blog, twitter, facebook, flickr, youtube, and other social media feed out there that is related to downtown NYC and I would pull it all into an aggregation system where my editor and journalists could cull through the posts coming in, curate them, and then publish them. I’d do a bit of original reporting on the big stories but most of what I’d do would be smart curation, with a voice, and an opinion.A VC, Jun 2009
If the New York Times is doing it on their home page, you can bet on it.
In Media Res 
Excellent thinking on how to start a news delivery system and, frankly, good advice for starting many other types of small businesses.