When it comes to new media, the past 20 years have seen the questions posed by newspaper executives morph from “What if?” to “Now what?”

To be sure, newspapers have always been quick to adopt technology to make their delivery of news timelier and more relevant.

In the late 1980s, well before the World Wide Web, Craigslist and the iPhone became household terms, the key innovation newspapers were beginning to embrace was audiotext.

Newspapers printed phone numbers at the end of articles, and readers could call that number to get additional news and information. Separate phone numbers provided sports, weather and entertainment updates. The Associated Press tested a nationwide audiotext service in 1990, based on a 900-number.