We Couldn't Make this Stuff Up

Reuters ran a story today on the news that a number of major newspapers, including the venerable Washington Post, will be subscribing to BlogBurst, a syndicated service from Pluck Corp. According to the story:

Newspapers are looking to BlogBurst to provide expert blog commentary on travel, women's issues, technology, food, entertainment, and local stories -- areas where publishers may not have dedicated staff, Pluck's chief executive, Dave Panos, said.

This news comes on the heels of a Fortune story last week by David Kirkpatrick: "Does old media love the Web too much?" Kirkpatrick observes:

Some of the biggest companies seem to have stopped fighting the Web and instead fallen in love with it. They think it is better than they are -- that there is no answer other than to completely submit.

I don't think this is a case of self loathing on the part of traditional publishing. Newspapers are just changing with the times and leveraging another content channel for tuned content for micro audiences.