Here is the last day (finally) of cleaning out my backlog of stories relating to the dailies, traditional media, new media, advertising, etc. Some of these headlines are slightly outdated, but so be it.

• Village Voice Media is stepping in to capitalize on the opportunity completely missed by the dailies in creating a local advertising network. This may turn out to have been the biggest whiff of all the missteps of the dailies over the last decade. And while that may be arguable given how badly the dailies have handled their fortunes of late, there is no arguing that in these late innings, the creation of a local ad network (both online and offline) represents perhaps the last great hope for local newspaper franchises.

• Unfortunately, the local ad play has also taken a beating in the current downturn, so maybe it’s not the immediate fix everyone believes it to be. (Though long-term, the hype over local ad networks, local search, local media, and local advertising is more than justified). Even local TV, which has also whiffed on many of the opportunities they’ve been presented, is showing signs of innovation and change in the new media landscape.

• Online classifieds are soaring these days (as if anyone needed more evidence of how badly the dailies blew their monopoly in that arena).

• Tucson has lost its daily. And again, while some say enough with the obvious and tell me something I don’t know, the pace of death and destruction in the industry is staggering and is still worth endless commentary and observation. Anytime an industry can lose $18 billion in 3 years, it’s worth commenting on.

• …another article to add to the mix on whether or not micropayments will or won’t save the dailies. And despite the arguments against charging for content, MediaNews is forging ahead anyway.

• Some believe the Kindle won’t save the dailies either (though I’d argue that it might).

• Maybe public subsidies are the answer (even Congress is jumping on the bandwagon)…or maybe the dailies can follow the example set by the Huffington Post and start auctioning off internships and even higher level jobs on ebay.

• Also in the obvious category, the trend with the dailies over the next few years will be local billionaires and/or real estate developers buying their local daily from debt-holders. It’s already happened in San Diego, and next on the list will be Boston, L.A., and possibly even New York. (Something has to happen with the Times as it’s too valuable to be run down to zero and the Sulzberger family is eventually going to riot as their fortune continues to be decimated…). But eventually, most large metro dailies will be owned by local individuals or groups of individuals and we’ll be back to where we were 100 years ago.

Over the years, I have written on numerous occasions about the growing presence of advertising in airplanes. Because the trend has not been so obvious with Northwest, the airline that accounts for 90% of my air travel in any given year, it is just that much more startling when I fly another airline and see the extent to which advertising is plastered on every square inch of open space in an airplane. It now covers the seat tray, the napkins, the security line bins…even the baggage claim carousel. it cannot be escaped.

But as it turns out, the ads work. A new finding by Triad Consulting indicates that 79% of the consumers who saw an ad on an airplane seat tray were able to later recall the advertiser in an unbiased setting. Triad aggregated the data from 17 other studies to determine that airplane advertising, given the captive nature of the audience, is an effective venue for advertisers. “The very high recall rate may be due to the fact that the consumer is viewing the message for an extended period of time, said Dr. Mark Guadagnoli of Triad Consulting. “The key points more easily transfer into long-term memory,” which makes it an “effective” platform.

What also helps advertisers is how ill-prepared so many people are for being stuck for hours in a single seat in a confined space. I am amazed at how many people get on an airplane without a book, magazine, newspaper, or anything with which to occupy their time. I, on the other hand, fully expect and am adequately prepared to be stranded on the tarmac for a minimum of 19+ hours. I always have at least 6 magazines, a book, a laptop and an extra battery, DVDs, an iPhone and 2 fully charged iPods with TV shows, movies, music, games, apps, etc. (perhaps one of the many reasons I am referred to by some as ‘Captain Excess’). If more people arrived on an airplane with something other than the Sky Miles magazine and the ad on the tray table to pass the time, advertisers might stop plastering ads all over the cabin.