The New York Times has a good summary of the many changes that are ongoing and coming up at the News & Record daily newspaper (Why Newspapers Are Betting on Audience Participation).

In this world, "Get me rewrite" will in effect be a menu option, a way for unhappy readers to go online and offer their own versions of articles they do not like. Their hope is to convert the paper, through its Web site, www.news-record.com, into a virtual town square, where citizens have a say in the news and where every reader is a reporter.

This feature, part of a planned overhaul of The News & Record's Web site that is to begin next week, is a potent symbol of a transformation taking place across the country, where top-down, voice-of-God journalism is being challenged by what is called participatory journalism, or civic or citizen journalism.

It is interesting that the NY Times doesn't mention its baby steps in covering blogs, but I especially like this story of sources "scooping" the News & Record.

Yet there is fierce competition with bloggers. Several local politicians blog, including Sandy Carmany, a member of the City Council, who blogs in near-real time, and who scooped The News & Record recently on the city budget. Last week, when a News & Record reporter called Tom Phillips, another councilman, for comment on the paper's exclusive information that Wal-Mart was coming to town, Mr. Phillips turned around and broke the news on his own blog.

I hardly think a council member informing their constituents what is happening on the city council should be considered a "scoop." In any case, is the budget that is the news, or is analysis of what it means the news? What's the real "scoop"? And, should a politician wait to inform citizens of news that will affect them until a newspaper has had a chance to publish a story on it?

Read the whole thing and then check out Citizen Paine's take: NYT's take on Greensboro News-Record.