Will their growing pains be too much for the newspapers to survive? In the past year several major newspaper publishers have either filed for bankruptcy (e.g. L.A. Times) or closed down (e.g. the Rocky Mountain News). Some people have blamed the economy for poor print readership, others have blamed the Internet.

Traditionally, newspapers relied on revenue from print ads, classifieds, and more recently, subscriptions. With the 24/7 availability of free news online, not to mention the plethora of citizen journalist blogs, the emergent real-time updates from the Twitter stream, and free classified sites like CraigsList and Kijiji, print subscription numbers are way down and advertisers are fleeing the dying medium.

In order to survive, newspapers must abandon their current business model and figure out how to make money online. Head on over to the eLab eXchange and choose the ideas that you think hold out the promise of helping newspapers get back in the black!