Forty years ago, the epitaph was being written for radio: Rest in Peace. Radio was in the difficult position that newspapers find themselves in today — losing an audience to new media technologies, cutting back on news stories and struggling to keep advertisers.

Rock ‘n’ roll and talk news saved the aural medium from extinction in the 20th century. And now, today, could the media model born in 1920 be poised for yet another rebound?

In a sign that it is, radio is attracting more and more newspaper and broadcast journalists to its reporting ranks. National Public Radio is one of the few news organizations actually beefing up its international and Washington coverage. And newspapers are now turning to forms of audio — radio, podcasts and satellite broadcasts — in the search for a new audience.

According to Arbitron figures, radio still attracts nearly 94 percent of Americans for an average of 19 hours per week. It’s also adding Spanish-language talk and music stations; there are 678 Hispanic stations nationwide today. And radio is embracing new technologies — such as podcasting, satellite and soon- to-come high-definition, over-the-air signals — to offer innovative programming.

Contrast that with last week’s sorry news about American newspapers. Daily circulation slid 2.5 percent — 3.1 percent on Sundays — in the six months ending in March, according to the Newspaper Association of America. The 45 million papers sold nationwide on a typical weekday reflect the long-term decline from a peak of 63 million in 1984. Newspapers have cut at least 2,000 newsroom jobs in the past year and shed some alternative language editions. Wall Street investors even forced the sale of the Knight Ridder chain.

You get the picture.

But as the latest media technology — the Internet — sucks away readers, some papers are trying to learn from the old-line technology of radio. In March, The Washington Post joined a growing number of newspapers getting into local radio, launching a joint venture, WTWP, with Bonneville International Corp. at 107.7 FM and 1500 AM. The station provides weather, traffic and lengthy discussions of the news that mostly feature Post reporters.

In part, this is evidence that many in the mainstream media are hedging their bets. Electronic media in one form or another is likely to dominate in the near and far-flung future as technology gives us the option of hearing what we want, when we want it. News organizations are starting to develop content for delivery through cell phones, iPods and other devices. “The technologies used to develop that content are very similar to radio,” said E.W. “Bill” Brody, journalism professor at the University of Memphis.

Another reason that newspapers including The Baltimore Sun and The New York Times have entered radio markets is pure economics. They can package branded news reports for different audiences at little additional cost. At the Post, some reporters arenrsquo;t too happy about that. The Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild filed an unfair labor practices complaint against the paper last month for allegedly failing to negotiate in good faith on possible compensation for WTWP appearances. Rick Weiss, the Post’s guild chairman, said reporters are being asked to do “work that is significantly different than the kind of things we were hired to do.”

Radio also offers a journalistic lesson: Beefing up coverage can boost your audience. In the past few years, NPR backed by a $200 million grant from the McDonald’s heiress Joan Kroc, has doubled its national staff and increased its roster of foreign bureaus to 17 from 10, according to Ken Stern, NPR’s executive vice president. Former Baltimore Sun editor Bill Marimow, the vice president of news, has hired reporters from the Sun and The Los Angeles Times to cover beats from criminal justice to the Pentagon. Earlier this year, NPR hired a string of high-profile talent from ABC News, including correspondent Robert Krulwich and former “Nightline” anchor Ted Koppel, who has agreed to provide weekly analysis. The Wall Street Journal called ABC a “farm team” for NPR.

NPR’s audience has doubled since 1999, to 26 million weekly. It also is one of the most successful podcasters, netting 6 million downloads last month and more than 20 million since its podcasts started in August. “This is an expanding universe, not a contracting one,” said Michel Martin, a 14-year veteran of ABC who was brought to NPR to host a drive-time show.

Radio listeners are, in some ways, a captive audience. The largest share tunes in during the drive to work and back. The new options posed by satellite and high-definition radio will work well for commuters unhappy with another recent trend in commercial radio — consolidation and standardization of formats by such companies as Clear Channel. “Radio,” said Matthew Felling, of the Center for Media and Public Affairs, “is a populist medium.”

And surprisingly, 40 years after television threatened to silence it, radio is tuning in for a 21st-century renaissance.

Contributing editor Elizabeth Wasserman is a Washington freelance writer. She can be reached at ewasserman@cq.com.