I touched on this issue a few weeks ago in the aftermath of Time’s piece on the future of journalism.

But in recent weeks, it has been increasingly dawning on me that not only is journalism gripped by a commercial crisis, it has an arguably bigger problem – it is divided over attitudes of technology. A crisis of conscience (more like a crisis of nonsense IMHO).

The root of the issue is that journalism as we know it is dying. But that is not happening because the world doesn’t want news, features and analysis. It is happening because too many publishers have not moved quickly enough to embrace new media, and all-too-often they have taken a primitive, kneejerk approach to how they do so. Like trying to cure a seriously wounded animal by giving it a new handbag.

Journalism is now split, typically, between grizzled hacks bemoaning the problems the industry has but refusing to open their minds to how it can change, and journalists who understand much of how technology can change journalism, but are tarred with being experimentalists.

The latest example is Ari Goldman, a lecturer at New York’s prestigious Columbia University journalism school, declaring fxxk new media. Ari, I am not an early adopter of technology and remained sceptical about social media for some time, but I strongly suspect it will be new media fxxking you.

In today’s Guardian, Polly Toynbee appears to be calling for Government money to be spent salvaging local newspapers. Yes, and while we’re at it, why not given the hacks early retirement on fat pensions? How about a Porsche for good measure?

Bailing out failing newspapers would be throwing good (and scarce) money after bad. What local newspapers in the UK need is not a lifeline, it’s a wake-up call: they’re getting one with the chill winds now blowing through newsrooms, and hopefully it won’t be too late for the good ones to change themselves into businesses with a future.

In a fast-changing world, you have to be worth what you’re charging and offer a compelling product. Many newspapers have not changed their fundamental business premise since the 1800s. I could wax lyrical about journalism’s challenges here, but let me just make a quick point about local newspapers, given I cut my teeth on them.

The media business model is grounded in getting people to want appealing content, and selling marketing openings around it. That can continue, it just must change drastically in order to exploit and align with new media that has emerged.

Just because the internet has made international and national news accessible in the blink of an eye doesn’t mean that local news isn’t just as appealing to the consumer – if not more so. The pub planning application in my street caused what verged on a citizens’ revolt. We didn’t have a truly local newspaper to cover it, but if ‘the story’ had unfolded online and the content was of sufficient quality, I bet most of my neighbours would have paid for it.

My first editor told me on my first day as a hack that the teeniest, tiniest things can be what upset, inspire, frighten or shock people – and therefore make a story. I covered many a parish council sub-committee meeting wondering what he meant. Recently, it has dawned on me: grants for playground improvements are not Fleet Street, but they are my street.

Journalism has a fantastic opportunity to reinvent itself and capitalise on the appetite for content. But first it has to close the divide between the nay-sayers and modern media advocates, or it will continue to be its own worst enemy.