I've been trying to reconcile print design principles with screen, and the main difference is that on a screen you have unlimited vertical space. A newspaper layout doesn't really make sense - do I go to the next column, or scroll down? I think there are ways to guide the readers eye to where you want it to go with color or in other ways, but it's an interesting design problem.
I admit I'm one of the few that very much liked the Windows 8 design language approach of readable columns scrolling off infinitely horizontally. I thought that was a good design path. Screens don't have to scroll vertically.
