The Columbia Journalism Review yesterday published a brief treatise on the future of the newspaper industry which, in failing to mention social networking sites, apparently sparked a firestorm on Twitter, Poynter Online reported today.

"The Reconstruction of American Journalism," by industry veteran Leonard Downie Jr. and Columbia University professor Michael Schudson focuses instead on supplanting subscriber and advertising dollars with government subsidies and philanthropic support, Harvard University's Nieman Journalism Lab reported yesterday. The 39-page report also suggests that, despite the industry's current economic crisis, newspapers are not headed for extinction, but that community newspapers will fare far better than mammoth enterprises as the industry continues to evolve.

Though its authors recognise that, thanks to the Internet, former readers now have the power to contribute news as much as to consume it, the report lists no specific platforms for doing so besides blogs operated by traditional newspapers.

Reconstruction's attention to rehabilitating established outfits while ignoring new media prompted media industry expert and City University of New York Professor Jeff Jarvis to call it a plea to save newspapers, not journalism, on his BuzzMachine blog. Industry veteran Alan Mutter, meanwhile, used the expediencey of online commentary to list one way the U.S. government already supports the journalism industry: namely, by providing a reduced postage rate.

Ultimately, media industry expert Steve Outing characterised the report as adirect pitch for financial support from government and charitable foundations. The Syracuse Post-Standard's Brian Cubbison wrote he felt the exercise was a history lesson which held little appeal or profit for those willing to embrace, or already engaged in, the electronic delivery of news.