Heartening talk from NY Times president

It's great to see the president of the most important paper in the country say that readers will determine the format of future delivery of news by The New York Times.

Sometimes it's worth standing back and recognizing what a long way we've come.

Here's an excerpt of what Scott Heekin-Canedy, president and general manager of The New York Times, said in a Q&A on the paper's Web site.

"My colleagues and I see The Times not as a newsPAPER but instead as a news provider. Our goal is to offer our consumers news, information and entertainment wherever and whenever they want it and even in some ways they may not have envisioned — in print or online, wired or mobile, in text, graphics, audio, video or even live events...

"What might be the future format? I think the answer is that it will be your choice."

Talk like that is one reason I think megabrands like The Times will still be around and playing a perhaps even bigger role when a lot of other papers have fallen. And maybe it offers one possible solution for local newspapers: Link up with The Times (or CNN or ?) using the same platform to augment the papers' national and international report with strong local coverage.