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I devour newspapers as if they were going out of style - which may be the case.

The surveys all agree: Young people are gravitating to the Internet or television for news. I cannot grasp that. How can you not read a daily newspaper? Or two?

The newspaper business - intelligently - is running scared, dodging Wall Street defeatists and adapting to the challenge. The future? Murky, though papers may survive and prosper as print-digital hybrids. That's what economist Robert Kuttner concludes in the current Columbia Journalism Review.

While the industry focuses on finding a new business model, I wonder about content. What must newspapers offer to keep readers?

Here's my unsolicited advice, free and worth every penny.

First, take the high road: Make your paper more intelligent rather than less. You'll face too much competition dumbing down for Jerry Springer fans.

Second, roll the dice. Technology whips us at a frantic pace. Innovation is risky, but do it fast.

Third, you gotta have heart.

Intelligence may mean trimming your sails. Corporate won't fund additional reporters, so dig deeper into fewer beats. And re-think them - there may be gold in staffing religion and media, for example. Invite readers into your decision-making. Journalism ain't "inside baseball" anymore.

You cannot pay reporters what NFL teams dole out to top draft picks, but you can evaluate them as carefully. Make them do sprints. Seek recruits with experience in politics, education or business rather than journalism school graduates. Favor the bookish, not the video-educated. (That way, you may avoid the disastrous recent local headline - not here - calling the testimony of a trial witness "candid." With judgments like that, who needs juries?)

The news game boils down to learning what's happening and explaining it lucidly. Aye, there's the rub. Because a discouraged reader will turn away, please get tough on the basics:

Minimize poor spelling, grammar and usage. Deep-six official language - "implementation" and "programmatic" make me comatose. Insist on proper attribution, because all governments lie, and kill the idiotic kind - "`The sun rose yesterday,' according to Police Chief Jesse James."

Spike meaningless stories, too, for dullness is a felony. Be bold: Drop the pretense to objectivity; our human imperfections distort our vision. Identify and state your position the way "The Economist" magazine tells me the Lord loves international business. That's fair, even flattering. Remember: Subjective writing is livelier.

Please ask yourself, again, "What is a daily's civic purpose?" The answer isn't comforting.

I am grateful to The Tribune, for example, for the daily crossword, comics, arts and sports coverage. Yet the framers weren't noodling entertainment at First Amendment time. They wanted newspapers to watch power, doubt power, play adversary to power.

Easy for me to write, I know - journalism is embedded in profit-making media corporations. There's no inevitable contradiction, however, between excellence and profitability; neither the New York Times nor the Wall Street Journal is folding.

About heart: Where is the pugnacious, lusty journalism of yesteryear? Gone to cable, I guess, and the blogosphere. I'm not nostalgic for William Randolph Hearst's ethics, just his vigor, which drew lots of patrons through the turnstiles.

Molly Ivins had that spirit. Imagine a newspaper emulating her passion for truth, anger at lies and love of laughter. Stir in the Wall Street Journal's hard-nosed, follow-the-money reporting and - voila! - a heckuva publication.

My point, deciders, is that newspapers must raise their sights, gambling on brave, high-quality journalism.

Oh: I'll take my pay in cash, thank you.