Podcasts, blogs and Dave Barry

** FOR USE WITH AP WEEKLY FEATURES ONLY** Dave Barry, author of `Tricky Business,' published by Putnam. (AP Photo/copyright The Miami Herald) CAT FOR USE WITH AP WEEKLY FEATURES PACKAGE ONLY. NO ARCHIVE ** FOR USE WITH AP WEEKLY FEATURES ONLY** Dave Barry, author of `Tricky Business,' published by Putnam. (AP Photo/copyright The Miami Herald) CAT FOR USE WITH AP WEEKLY FEATURES PACKAGE ONLY. NO ARCHIVE Photo: THE MIAMI HERALD Photo: THE MIAMI HERALD Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Podcasts, blogs and Dave Barry 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Dave Barry is one funny guy. His column, which has run in the Miami Herald for more than 20 years, has appeared in more than 500 newspapers. He's written more than 20 books, all of them big sellers.

So when he came to town last Friday to promote his latest effort, "Dave Barry's Money Secrets -- Like: Why is There a Giant Eyeball on the Dollar?", and to speak at the Commonwealth Club, I made an appointment to chat with him at his downtown hotel. I figured I'd write down his clever quips, repeat them in a column and make it appear that I am witty. Barry, who is 58, could not have been nicer and was happy to talk.

"Newspapers," he said right off the bat, "are dead."

Uh, to be honest, I was hoping for something a little funnier. But, the more he talked about it, the clearer it became that it is a worthwhile topic for discussion. And Barry may even be right.

Everyone has heard about cutbacks in the newspaper business, from the big names on the East Coast to the papers in your driveway. And if there is anyone who typifies the rapid pace of change in the business and its effect on how you get your news, it is Barry.

Barry has taken his place at the Herald and parlayed it into a national soapbox. He's a household name -- or as close to one as you'll find in the newspaper business -- from a time, not so long ago, when newspapers featured personalities and marketed them.

"The era of the writer in the newspaper was in the '70s and '80s," Barry said, "when newspapers were making money no matter what. They'd send somebody off to Fiji for a story. If you knew you had somebody good, you'd just send them. You knew they'd come up with something."

Barry is a good example of how the dynamic has changed. When I arrived for the interview, he was finishing a session with a local podcaster. Frankly, Barry wasn't exactly sure where that podcast was headed, but it seemed like a good idea.

For the technologically clueless, a podcast is a recorded file -- an interview, a news story read aloud, whatever -- that can be downloaded to your computer, an iPod or other MP3 player. Although podcasts seem mysterious and offbeat to the technologically challenged, my sense is -- and reports from The Chronicle's popular podcast site confirm -- that they have entered the mainstream and are becoming more popular all the time.

Podcasts could be a perfect place for a writer with some flair to show some individuality. Of course, they must be used correctly. Barry suggests the best use of a podcast is targeting people with a specific interest in a relatively narrow topic -- say, an interview with a popular humor columnist.

On the other hand, Barry says his wife, Michelle Kaufman, a sportswriter at the Miami Herald, is covering the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. She's been asked to podcast the Games. That doesn't seem like a bright idea.

"Explain it to them," Barry remembered telling his wife. "THE OLYMPICS WILL BE ON TELEVISION! You've got people saying, 'Let's see, I can watch this on my 57-inch TV in living color, or I can download this thing from the speed-skating rink."

Or take blogs. Barry certainly has.

Again, for the technologically clueless, a blog -- shorthand for Web log -- is something of an online diary where people write pretty much anything they want and provide links to interesting topics, Web sites or stories.

Several years ago, Barry created the blog www.davebarry.com. It features typical "Barryisms," odd news stories sent in by ubiquitous "alert readers," columns, and a recurring feature called "A Fine Name for a Rock Band." (Most recent submission: Loincloth Outrage.)

"About five years ago, I went to the Herald and I told them, 'I've got this blog and maybe you'd like to run it,' " Barry said. "And they said, 'It's a what?' But then they had a committee meeting or something and now they want everybody to have a blog. They want the security guard to have a blog."

Barry's blog has taken off like gangbusters, and like podcasts, blogs are the Next Big Thing in journalism. More and more newspapers are offering blogs covering everything from the local sports scene to the business world. (See The Chronicle's "culture blog" and others at sfgate.com.)

So it's clear that although there may be doubts about the future of the newspaper industry, there are directions in which it can expand and thrive. The future is digital.

It has to be said, however, that Barry is not optimistic. A little more than a year ago, he announced that he was taking a sabbatical from his column, and has now decided to make the break permanent. The reason, he stresses, was not that he had a lack of faith in the industry, but that he was ready to move on. Still, he has grave doubts about the future of newspapers.

"It has to start with the kids," he said. "My son is 25. He's been around newspaper people all of his life. He doesn't get the paper. That's the first problem. The second problem is: We can no longer compel people to pay attention. We used to be able to say, there's this really important story in Poland. You should read this. Now people say, I just look up what I'm interested in on the Internet."

Meanwhile, for those of us in the newspaper business, Barry provides an easy step-by-step plan of action for surviving in the new world of journalism. It is simple, really. Write a column, win the Pulitzer Prize (his was in 1988, for commentary), write 25 best-sellers, have a television sit-com based on your life ("Dave's World" on CBS) and then move into blogs and podcasting.

I plan to start immediately.