The Post NY Post?

Apres l’deluge…. moi?

There is no longer any question that newspapers are in trouble.

Daily closings and layoffs place the entire profession of journalism on the endangered list.

Right up there with hedge fund managers.

Lose a hedge fund and who cares (for most of us at least). Lose a newspaper, and the whole world becomes a lot smaller and a lot more sterile.

We’re undergoing a kind of technological forest fire – a clearing away of the dead wood. But after the fire is over, small green shoots begin to emerge as new growth and new life return to the forest floor.

If we look carefully, even in the midst of the blaze of The San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune and other ‘tree based’ media, we can see distinct signs of new life.  And those signs, small though they may be, are going to point us journalists toward the future.

Hang on.

Yesterday, The Hollywood Reporter announced that Amanda Congdon’s online only series Sometimes had been picked up by Flo.

Flo.

Now, if you are an old grizzled NY Post reporter running from the flames, your first reaction is going to be ‘what the hell are you talking about’.  So let’s take a closer look.

First, Amanda Congdon began her career as the onscreen/online newsreader for a then cutting-edge daily video series called Rocketboom. Rocketboom was the brainchild of web enfant terrible Andrew Barron, who, as far as I could tell, started this daily clever broadcast from his Brooklyn apartment with little more than an idea, a desk, a map and Amanda.

Amanda was the talent, and it was a killer combination. A partnership they should have kept, but didn’t.  Amanda left, attracted by the siren call of network television and soon enough had her own exteremly short-lived series on ABC. A flop.  She was made for the web and some things don’t translate.

Now Amanda has popped up again with another online play called Sometimes. It’s a good name. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. But at least she is in there pitching.

Like I said, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but she is trying.

In any event, she just signed a deal with Flo TV.

What is Flo TV?

Flo TV is a service that puts video on mobile phones.  NBC’s video.. or yours. If it’s good enough.

Amanda’s apparently is.

Today we spend 8.5 hours a day staring at screens.  13% of that time is spent staring at iPhones or blackberries. Yet currently only 1% of advertising dollars goes to those phone screens.  Phone screens are going to grow… fast. They need content. Video content.  And Amanda is there now.

But she is only an indicator of what is possible and what is coming.

And if Amanda can get on my mobile phone, I am willing to be that so can Frank Rich or Mark Bittman.

And a lot of others with something to say.