Jeff Jarvis today blogs on the McGraw-Hill Media Summit in New York about the panel that was hosted by Business Week's Jon Fine titled ''The Changing Face of News: The Power, The Influence and the Challenge of the Technologies.'' The conference materials state that in this digital age, ''the role, the path of the future and the general understanding of how to structure a national news gathering and distribution organization is the ongoing question for our industry.'' This leads us to the question of The New York Times, simultaneously so respected and so reviled in equal measure by Americans. How can a national newspaper which is so vital and necessary to our democracy turn around the bad fortune that has visited it so recently? From Buzzmachine, on the discussion:

''Next, a panel with big, old media companies: Julia Wallace of The Atlanta Journal Constitution, Jon Klein of CNN, Kinsey Wilson of USA Today, David Westin of ABC.

"... Asked about the Times, Raines says they need to decide whether to go head-to-head nationally with Murdoch and the Journal. I thought it was the other way around. Isn't the national report the high ground? Raines says no. He points to the Washington Post's contraction strategy, pulling back into inside the Beltway. He says that the Times may need to come up with a contraction as opposed to an expansion strategy. 'Common sense tells you that when your stock was at $54 in the mid 90s and it's now at, what, $18 and the son of an Alabama construction millionaire has bought 20 percent of your company ... your stock price cannot sit there.'''

''What should the New York Times do? Lightning round. Klein: 'Stop writing about themselves.' Wallace: 'Become that voice for the intellectuals of America on any platform.' Wilson: Long pause. Then he agrees with Howell --. Westin: 'It sounds right ... that they're in a middle ground that is not sustainable right now, neither fish nor fowl.' He says he doesn't know whether the (thing) is about local or a set of subjects of readers. Raines: 'I think Julia's idea of going for that elite, intellectual audience is a sound one.'''

This reminds me of Ed Kosner's idea not so long ago of making US News & World Report into a sort of American version of The Economist, deeply analytical, targeting an elite audience. Such a journal, sorely lacking, would be an invaluable resource, able to command premium ad pages and revenue because of the median imcome and cultural influence of the readers. Of course, Kosner's grand scheme never quite worked out and he subsequently left the employ of the mercurial Mort Zuckerman in frustration.

But what about The Times? The New York Times is already regarded by a significant amount of Americans as a sort of instrument of the elite liberal overclass. Would embracing that representation fully be the right direction for The Times to go? Would it help with ad revenues during this ad recession? The eyeballs of intellectuals, by and large, probably wouldn't ever abandon the written word on the printed page. This is certainly a provocative idea that deserves reviting, no matter how smarmily elitist the line ''... and the son of an Alabama construction millionaire has bought 20 percent of your company'' actually sounds.