Do the rough results from several newspaper publishers in the past quarter speak for themselves, or is there a light at the end of the tunnel? Judging by the decent results at the New York Times (NYSE: NYT) and the WSJ, as compared to, say, McClatchy, (NYSE: MNI) there may not be one simple answer. Panelists at the Media and Money Conference echoed this outlook during a discussion on the future of print: the fate of print publishers isn’t determined by the industry they’re in, but the moves they make to adjust.

-- Print strategy today: Hitting on the same themes as his FOBM interview, Wall Street Journal publisher Gordon Crovitz insisted that the company has “always thought of the WSJ as a franchise.” The key is to align the various platforms according to what they do best. The print publication can add context to what was reported online the day before.

-- Advertising: Andrew Swinand, President, Starcom Worldwide: Company has increased dollars spent with the WSJ, as the company has done a good job of targeting narrow audiences within its broad reach. Non-WSJ example: “Andy’s pizza in Evanston (Illinois) can’t justify an ad in the Chicago Tribune, but it could buy an ad in the Evanston version of the site.” Some publications are facilitating this, while others are not.

-- Magazines: Kent Brownridge, CEO, Alpha Media Group (Maxim): “The most successful magazines, lately, are the ones that have discovered a way to sell on the newsstand. The Newsstand does work, it works very well. Success of US Weekly is a testament to that.” The way to do it is to grapple constantly with who the readers are and what they want. A number of magazines are doing well, but a number of magazines shouldn’t be there. Shakeout will occur.

-- Innovation: Swinand: Advertisers and publishers need to think of things that actually help consumers, not just straight advertising. A possible example is a mobile app for monitoring weight loss that a health magazine could deliver over bluetooth at a magazine rack. Crovitz: Always looking for new ways to consumers.  Blackstone Group managing director Jillian Greenthal argued that the newspaper industry still hasn’t come up with a way to bring young readers in. Young readers “aren’t even aware of what’s on the website.” Crovitz agree that it’s an area where “none of us have figured it out.” He admitted that if he were younger he might not be reading his own local paper. Brownridge: “If I had a newspaper, I’d make a much bigger sport section and hire all the people from ESPN. ... Young men like sports, beer, babes and cars.” In other words, he’d make the newspaper Maxim magazine.

-- Competition: An audience member asked about competition from news aggregators like Digg or vertical publications like paidContent.org (their example, not ours): Crovitz: We know that the way people consume information is so different now. The web has made all of us users of aggregated content. In the pre-digital age, it was harder to get a third or fourth look at things, unless you had multiple subscriptions. A trade aggregator like paidContent, that’s what they do for us.