One thing I’ve noticed about students today: Very few of them “read” news.

Don’t get me wrong, they do consume news, but it is usually through “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central rather than a traditional news outlet.

Students are not alone. More and more people are consuming news in far different patterns than in the past. This situation is leading to some interesting survival challenges for newspapers, including The Spokesman-Review.

Not that we journalists are being blindsided by this potential demise. We’ve been watching it happen for years as technology changed. In 2006, Senior Editor/Local News Carla T. Savalli wrote an analysis detailing the future issues facing traditional newspapers. In March, she participated in the national “Managing Change” seminar for newspapers. According to her findings, the short answer about the future of news is that it must be interactive with the audience.

Interactive is a relatively new term in news; it means that we as journalists must actually work with our readers in terms of making the news more accessible through Internet, broadcast and other formats besides the traditional printed page. This means talking with people in a more direct manner.

It also means we as reporters can no longer hide behind the limitations of a static deadline because information is now a 24/7 medium.

“Now, we are starting our days on-line and finishing by publishing in print,” Savalli said. “That means we are publishing news 12 to 13 hours a day (as opposed to 2-4 hours per day). We are also reporting on the radio with KJRB.”

Savalli said the news staff has had to change their entire attitudes about using the Web and radio as mediums to expand the available local information. The newsroom has been forced to change from a print-centric model, which was much more mysterious and hidden, she said, to a more interactive position with transparency so people can see how news products are created.

In addition, she said the newspaper has created a Web-based reporting team whose goal is to report for the Web site first. She said new technology will also provide future micro-sites for different readers’ interests and news needs.

Savalli said that while many people are getting their information from a variety of other sources including blogs, niche sources that mirror their own political or social philosophy, podcasts and other resources, she believes people will go back to more traditional news resources when they want reliable information.

“Readers will always revert to quality information,” she said. “They will go to Web sites, bloggers, YouTube and others, but in the end when they need to know, they will always revert to the people who have always been able to give reliable information. Local, local, local is the only franchise newspapers have left and we have to be a lot more collaborative. We have to be able to interact with them (readers).”

Part of the transparency that papers such as The Spokesman-Review have put into place allows readers to reach out and contact editors and reporters through e-mail and blogs as well as the telephone and letters. This has caused some media pundits to say that ombudsmen are now disappearing because our role has been diminished. People no longer feel the need for a portal or a third party to intervene on their behalf. Where does that leave people such as me?

Often, it leaves us explaining how and why dealing with news is so different from any other way of communicating. It also leaves us explaining ethics and the fact that journalism ethics are very different from business or religious ethical codes.

It also leaves us assisting those people who are not technology savvy with answers to questions about issues of the day. And for people who may not understand why newspapers might open niche video streaming or Web sites in Spanish or Russian, we are here to help people both understand why these sites are being created and find their specialized news.

In short, newspapers are trying to use technology and adapting to the current business climates to make information much more accessible. Does it always work? No, but as Savalli said, newspapers are well known for testing things to death before launching. At least some news organizations are out there trying prototypes in the marketplace rather than in the lab. This gives more people in these markets (such as Spokane) more solid news choices.

Will we get to the point where we no longer pick up the printed page? Perhaps. Personally, I will mourn that day; but technology is changing our world and how we “read” it. Change is inevitable; it is up to the news organizations to keep up or get out of the way.