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With the Internet soundly kicking print magazines' asses lately, how can publications win back some of their online audiences?

That seems to be the question on every publisher's mind, none more so than S.I. Newhouse, who has spent a great chunk of change hiring staffers to develop Condé Nast Digital and make it marketable to his magazines' audiences, even while the ad page downturn has forced across-the-board cuts and, in some cases, entire titles to shutter.

The latest Condé development in Web sites? Make them read more like other online content, with weekly (or daily!) updates and sassy commentary. Make them, essentially, a blog.

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New York Magazine suffered a giant blow last week when it lost its owner Bruce Wasserstein. Still, the publication trucks on, just as fun and relevant as ever, and perhaps even more cleverly than ever with their recent dissection of how news is disseminated. The point of the article was to answer, definitively, who is breaking our top stories of the day; bloggers, television reporters, print journalists, or some unholy hybrid of that trinity. Their findings?

Not very much. The news cycle of the 24-hours in question was driven by stories stemming from unlikely sources such as Andrew Breitbart, Yale Daily News, and the National Enquirer. We could have told you that CNN has basically become a blooper reel for YouTube without the graph. But there's hope for traditional journalism:

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A new Pew Research Center for the People & the Press survey, released yesterday, reveals that the American public's opinion of the press's accuracy has reached its lowest level in two decades of Pew surveys.

The public's thoughts on media bias and independence didn't fare much better -- the levels reported in this recent survey now match the lowest figures recorded by Pew.

Pew Research's biennial media attitudes survey, which included data from 1,506 adults reached on landlines and cell phones, found that only 29 percent of Americans think that news organizations generally get the facts straight, with 63 believing that news stories are often inaccurate. Compare this to Pew's first survey about the media's performance in 1985, when 55 percent of respondents said news stories were accurate. However, that percentage dropped to 34 percent in the late 1990's and has stayed low, finally dipping to today's 29 percent. Ouch.

What's more, 60 percent of respondents in the recent survey said news organizations are politically biased and only 20 percent said media companies are working independently from powerful people and organizations.

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The Wall Street Journal reports today that many New York coffee shops are taking measures to discourage excessive laptop use.

It's hard enough to find a spot in the city that has reliable, free Internet that doesn't make you feel like an unwelcome mooch for lingering over a cup of coffee and a scone. Hey, we're even willing to pay a few bucks for decent Web access and an available outlet. But they're getting harder to come by.

As more and more shops ban laptops during midday hours and evenings and block access to electrical outlets, the shops that do allow computers are overwhelmed with them. Walk into Think Coffee on Mercer St. or Tea Lounge in Park Slope at midday during the week and it's hard to find someone not glued to a computer screen.

Where are some of your favorite places to work?

No More Perks: Coffee Shops Pull the Plug on Laptop Users via WSJ

Photo via Flickr

Media companies are starting to recognize the importance of social media. Earlier this year, The New York Times announced the creation of a social media editor position, which was filled by Jen Preston. In Texas, the Austin American-Statesman recently appointed Internet Editor Robert Quigley social media editor and National Geographic has also bought on a VP for social media, Robert Michael Murray.

Now, the New York Daily News is looking for a social media marketing manager, a full time position that "will create and manage social media opportunities to develop increased awareness, and extend our reach," the company's ad on mediabistro.com says.

Note to unemployed journalists: get on Twitter and start learning those social media skills now. They'll definitely come in handy as you job search.

These days, everyone is cutting back. But one place where people refuse to scrimp is on their wedding. So it comes as no surprise that in this time of shuttered publications, cut-backs and layoffs, we can see an announcement of the launch of a new wedding magazine this fall, a new wedding-themed website for grooms and even a fellow member of the media Twittering through his wedding planning.

Get Married recently announced it was adding a semiannual magazine to its wedding planning Web site and Lifetime television show. The magazine, which will debut in October, will be sent to readers, bridal retailers, shows and vendors for free. Although the magazine will bring in some revenue through ads, earnings from the Web and television offerings will mostly offset the cost, said Becca Brett Leish, Get Married's director of marketing and communications.

"We are offering ad opportunities in the magazine but the ad rates, compared to other national magazines, are much less," Leish said. "The show and the magazine both drive brides and users to the Web site and that's where we are monetizing content."

Get Married magazine is led by executive editor Stephanie Davis, who formerly served as editor in chief of skirt!. She will work closely with Jill Meister, the editor-in-chief of GetMarried.com as well as producers for the television series in order to integrate content across all three mediums.

Read on for more news about new media approaches to wedding planning

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