For at least the last three decades, people have predicted the demise of newspapers. 

That proclamation has become more fashionable as newspapers slash the size of their newsrooms or stop their printing presses altogether. The national bad news has certainly hit home. Two weeks ago, The News & Observer announced a new round of voluntary layoffs, despite posted profits by its parent company McClatchy. 

There are certainly plenty of theories for what’s killing the news. There’s Google, for one. Some fault free online content or bloggers; others point to stupid people who don’t want to be informed. The unifying element here is to blame the competition or the consumer. 

Then there’s the insistence that society can’t let newspapers die. 

“We’re the foundation for democracy!” news executives yell. “We inform the electorate! We hold the powerful accountable!” 

“In theory, yes you do,” responds the consumer. “But what have you done for me lately?” 

It’s a valid question. Sure, The N&O does a fantastic job on in-depth stories — the vacant offices in Holladay Hall attest to that. But stories revealing the mishandling of the Duke lacrosse case and the missteps in the hiring of former first lady Mary Easley are few and far between. 

The truth is, most news stories suck, and news organizations — not just newspapers — are drowning in mediocrity.  

In The N&O Oct. 20 for example, 14 of the 34 bylined news stories were unique to the paper. That means more than half of North Carolina’s newspaper of record consists of information from the Associated Press and The New York Times — content you can get anywhere. 

But newspapers aren’t the only ones devaluing the news. The top stories on the Web sites of both WRAL and my employer, News 14 Carolina, Oct. 20 were about an apartment fire — not exactly essential to self-governance. 

News organizations are telling the same stories with little differentiation, duplicating each other’s work with their own resources. The resulting product is costly for the producer and worthless to the consumer. 

The press as a whole can no longer operate under the assumption that individual news outlets are the audience’s only source of news. Data from a 2008 Pew Research Center report show that at least 36 percent of the public consumes news from multiple sources, whether online, on TV or otherwise. A majority of Americans also check on the news multiple times a day. Those numbers are only poised for growth. 

That means there’s no longer any need for the news echo chamber. Technology has given readers the tools to share information, and whether through Facebook, Twitter or e-mail, readers now expect important stories to find them. 

It’s time for local news organizations to try something different. 

Let’s start with what we know.

Most major news organizations face shrinking or stagnant staffs, so our resources are low. We must become better multimedia storytellers, so there’s a need for increased competition. We have to engage our audience to earn back their trust, so we must diversify and expand our coverage. 

In each newsroom, we need to begin treating the coverage of our competitors as complementary to our own. 

When The N&O investigates a story, WRAL should go after something else. When ABC 11 sees a WRAL van at the scene of an accident, they should drive the other way. And when News 14 Carolina spots an ABC 11 reporter at the courthouse, they should dig deeper to find another local story nobody else is covering. 

The result is different news on every channel, on every newspaper page. Without the duplication, the community gets better coverage. With the increased competition and extra content, the best stories bubble to the top. 

We live in the most well documented age in human history. Inexpensive tools for news gathering and sharing have allowed normal citizens to participate in the coverage of their own neighborhoods. 

News organizations can use these drastic changes to the media landscape to their advantage if they show a willingness to accept what’s happening around them. 

The answer seems obvious. Faced with extinction, news organizations have only one option for survival. 

They must evolve.