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The future of Scotland's commercial media has become a bit clearer; it's local, micro-local and hyper-local.

It's also going to feature the rhetoric of being visionary, revolutionary, interactive and convergent, while featuring propositions which have connectivity and granularity.

And it'll turn to journalism students to unearth the stories and deploy the multi-media, cross-platform reporting skills of the future.

Big on jargon, that was the message to be taken from a public meeting, at which the two bidders for the STV News at Six slot - not to mention an £8m slug of licence fee money - made their pitches.

On one hand, STV itself, with ITN News and Bauer Media, which includes Radio Clyde, Forth, Northsound, Moray Firth and the like: on the other, the three publishing groups behind The Courier, Press & Journal, The Scotsman and The Herald, with the support of independent production company Tinopolis.

Innovative ideas

Just to to recap on this briefly: STV, as with ITV plc, has decided its current news operation is unsustainable on the advertising revenue being generated these days.

The UK government, with regulator Ofcom, has chosen Scotland to be one of three pilot areas, with Wales and north-east England, for a publicly-funded news operation, open to bidders with innovative ideas.

One complication is that southern Scotland is in the Border licence area, so it's with Tyne-Tees.

You can read more of the political background to all this in The Ledger dated 4 January.

What I didn't know then, but ken noo, is that; there will be £8m on offer, and £6m each for the Cardiff and Newcastle operations: existing staff will be transferred to the winning bidder under current contractual conditions, even if the incumbent is part of the winning bid: and any advertising revenue around the news programmes will go the broadcaster, not the news producer, at least during the pilot phase.

Hyper-local news

So, Monday was the day for the two shortlisted bidders to set out their plans.

Lacking much broadcasting credibility and without the advantages of incumbency, the newspapers' consortium has helped its case by unveiling as chairman Mark Wood, former chief executive of ITN.

With only six weeks until a panel of industry experts decides which consortium will supply news to STV, about 80 people were there to learn more about the distinctions between the two bidders.

Asked how many were genuine members of the public, without an axe to grind, only five hands went up.

Both consortia had done at least some market research showing - as it invariably does - that people say they want more local news.

That doesn't mean they'll use it, but that's what they tell people with clipboards.

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ was planning a more local online service, but after ferocious lobbying by newspaper publishers, the corporation was told to shelve that plan.

Social networking

So this was the opportunity for publishers to say how they would take advantage of the space thus created.

Fronted by a notably low-tech and low-key presentation by TV presenter Isla Traquair, the pitch was for hundreds of journalists already in place, working in 50 offices around the country, and adaptable for TV work.

The talk was of "lighting up Scotland", citizen journalists or "user generated content", community radio stations, journalism trainees, and being first to the news, on the ground, where it happens, without limiting news by the reach of a satellite truck.

Donald Martin, the man leaving the editor's office at The Herald to take over the Sunday Post, testily argued that newspapers already originate much of the material that broadcast journalists then pick up.

And there was a sighting of one of the rarest creatures in corporate Scotland: a member of the DC Thomson publishing dynasty.

Citizen reporters

STV had to say how it would be different, without criticising what it's already doing.

The talk from chief executive Rob Woodward was of driving down to local level.

In addition to the 6.15 news bulletins from four studios, he's talking about increasing that to six.

There are plans for up to 300 local websites. The technology is being put in place, and the STV-led consortium plans to roll out the content, hiring local online editors and with four journalism courses already signed up.

Add to that use of social networking and mobile apps, and you have a pitch for the younger demographic that all the established news media are struggling to reach.

The Herald's Tom Thomson wasn't to be outdone by that: "We intend to work with schools, to make children media literate."

For those who think TV news about the world and the UK should be reported from a Scottish perspective, Woodward's vision is to do so from STV. (That has been a political hot potato for the ´óÏó´«Ã½. The most recent evidence from a Scottish government survey suggests support for the idea is weakening, a bit - down to 49% in favour and 40% satisfied with the way things are.)

Rivals collaborate

For the south of Scotland, there's the option of bringing it into the broadcasting pilot for the rest of Scotland.

Research by Ofcom, said its adviser Stewart Purvis, showed different attitudes in different parts of the south.

The Borders as far south as Hawick look north to Edinburgh, he suggested, while Dumfries people look across the border to a common interest with Carlisle and Cumbria. It's not clear how they're going to handle that one.

Two questions lingered as the meeting broke up.

Has anyone a plan to make these bids commercially self-standing after the pilot phase?

That's supposed to be part of the remit, but there's a lot of work needed on that by the deadline for final bids a month from now.

And in the words of Mark Wood, there is something historic happening between Scotland's newspapers.

Having long been rivals, they're proposing to work together on both commercial and editorial fronts - not just trying to create a new television programme, but with the online reporting which is now at the heart of their activities.

It's hard to avoid the logic that money pressures, and falling circulation, will continue to drive them ever closer together.