Brilliant. Chances are, any single individual selected for this role would have been scrupulously compared to Tim Russert as the gold standard, with any deviation holding potential to be seen as a flaw. Use of an ensemble blurs these “follow-in-the-footstep” comparisons. Moreover, it even gives one ensemble member the opportunity to develop his/her own image and room to rise sufficiently to be an individual replacement some day.

To survive in a world without paper editions, online newspapers will need high rates for online ads, but news sites of network conglomerates will not. The conglomerates can spread their news production costs across all of their media platforms and properties, including their sports and entertainment divisions. In many cases they will not even care whether or not they recoup their news production costs, since much will have advertising value for their other properties. The network news conglomerate in the end may be what keeps rates down and newspapers out.

But the media industry is going the other way, toward global brands. In the Hollywood Reporter in regards to video, Times Warner chair Jeffrey Bewkes said, “I remember the old 80-20 rule, where 80 per cent of the money was coming from 20 per cent of the activity. Well, now it’s going to be more like 90-10, where more of the money is going to an ever more world accessible giant brands and hits.” Translating that to the news sector, if 90% of our news stories will be global stories, is it that we are no longer most interested in news that most directly affects our lives? More likely, it is that global stories are now seen as directly affecting our lives. Not a good sign for a hyperlocal news future.

When GoogleNews provided live streaming coverage of the Republican convention this week, wasn’t that original content that competed directly for viewers who might have otherwise turned to TV news outlets? Or was that not considered competitive because it was offered in CSPAN style, sans reporters? In any event, each GoogleNews step away from being a news aggregator is a step toward becoming a news competitor. And, there are no steps news outlets can take to stop it.

Traditional outlets will stand back and wait for permission to publish, which can be easily granted by a comment from a public spokesperson. In the Palin episode, this permission came when a McCain aide commented that he had no evidence the story was being pushed by the Obama camp.

With partisan blogs motivated to generate such rumors, and public figures providing permission to publish simply by acknowledging them, we can expect a bawdier future of news.

In any event, even without primetime programming, local TV seems to have a profitable franchise remaining in local news. Metro papers are beginning to fail, and their online publications have not generated ad rates that can support large newsrooms, much less the video capabilities of TV stations. At this point, it looks like local news is going video.

In the national news supply chain, original content driving the national conversation has originated from the newspaper side — AP, NY Times, and Washington Post — which are converging to the low revenue world of online advertising. On the other hand, Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, unlike those venerable institutions, can draw upon the resources of News Corporation’s high revenue-generating TV properties. More revenues, more original reporting, more control over the national conversation. Look for Murdoch’s influence over our top stories to increase.

For a long time, this blog has been predicting that news in America would transform — moving from a monolithic, establishment point-of-view to a multitude of voices competing in a freewheeling marketplace of ideas. Google’s news room may be a step toward fulfilling that prophesy.

But, did Business Week dismiss the nude pictures too quickly? Nudity has been one of the few, sure fire ways to monetize the web in the U.S. Perhaps it’s the old Playboy Magazine formula — readers who claim to buy it for the articles, but really don’t. It is not out of the question that a U.S. newspaper in desperation might try full frontal-page nudity, which one can imagine would be a milestone in the evaporation of journalism culture.

Summing it up is 22-year-old Jonathan Mays who notes, “NBC has a dedicated soccer channel [on cable] and live stuff on NBCOlympics.com.” He likes the fact that he can follow the progress of the teams as they move from the group stage through quarterfinals and finals. In effect, he is creating customized Olympic coverage for himself.

Will the same thing happen to news? Will Americans follow the news that interests them most and only share an interest in a handful of big stories — Michael Phelps-sized stories? That seems to be where we are headling.