In a digital era, Janis Lott is old school.

The co-owner of midtown's Newsbeat shop is selling printed facsimiles of her customers' favorite U.S. and worldwide newspapers, ranging from the Chicago Tribune to the Irish Times and Mexico's La Jornada.

Most are available online. But, says Lott, "some people still want to have the tactile experience of reading a paper, not just pointing and clicking."

Lott sells 11-by-17 printouts of 1,050 newspapers – priced anywhere from $3.95 to $6.95 per edition – through a Canadian company, NewspaperDirect Inc.

Each printout is a black-and-white copy of a complete paper, ads and all, available on the same day it publishes.

Her regular customers? "A very niche group" that includes foreign language students, immigrants wanting news from their homeland and transplants from other U.S. cities, including a native Bostonian who buys a copy of the Globe whenever his Red Sox paste the hated Yankees.

One Indian man recently ordered a copy of The Hindu for his wife on their wedding anniversary. He gave her flowers, breakfast in bed – and the paper.

As Lott says, "That's something you can't re-create online."

Some customers purchase a printout of their favorite newspaper, take it to the Peet's coffee shop near Newsbeat's 1050 20th St. location and share it. Just like with a "real" paper.

Lott admits feeling a little "antiquated" selling printouts in a paperless age. But she considers it an important customer service – especially following last year's closure of a Sacramento firm that arranged deliveries of major papers to West Coast cities.

"As long as there are newspapers," she says, "we'll print them."

We hope she'll be printing for many years to come.

Fool's gold?

The Ukrainians are coming! Well, they may be – following an enthusiastic TV news clip that ran last week in the former Soviet republic about California's "second Gold Rush."

The news clip – filmed by a Ukrainian crew earlier this month – shows footage of a former gold mine near Placerville, as well as modern-day prospectors buying sluice boxes and local jewelers selling gold brooches.

The highlight: an exultant woman striking it rich while panning for gold along the south fork of the American River.

Alas, the "find" was a bit of a ruse, says Jody Franklin, El Dorado County's director of tourism.

She says the gold panner spotted the film crew and only pretended to make a discovery.

"I told (the Ukrainian producer) that it was for his benefit," Franklin says. But the message apparently got lost in translation.

Franklin reports the producer exclaimed: "That was perfect. Our cameras were running when she discovered gold!"

You can see the clip – sans subtitles, unfortunately – at http://podrobnosti.ua/ podrobnosti/2009/06/20/ 610680.html.

Gridiron gold

A Sacramento electrical contractor is hoping to grab a lucrative piece of the nation's fantasy football business.

Walt Zacharias, owner of Elite Power Inc., has partnered with a high school buddy in Seattle to launch Trench Fantasy (www.trenchfantasy.com), just ahead of the coming pro football season.

The idea is to break from the standard online leagues, where millions of participants select high-profile football stars and get points based on their weekly statistics. Instead, Trench participants will select a group of players, like a pro team's offensive and defensive lines or its kicking and return teams.

"It's incredible how the players behind the scenes make teams win," says the 45-year-old Zacharias, who is investing $250,000 in the venture, which will officially launch in July.

His partner, Sacramento native and former Microsoft exec Eric Koivisto, says they don't intend to compete with CBS or other giants in the fantasy football biz.

"Most fantasy players play in multiple leagues," Koivisto says. "We think they'll play in their leagues, then come to ours and play in the trenches."

Reach Bob Shallit at (916) 321-1049. Back columns: www.sacbee.com/shallit.