mydigimedia by Amy L. Webb

In the wake of mass attrition across Tribune properties, the Baltimore Sun announced that it's getting rid of its business section and will fold those stories into the "Maryland" section of the paper. A paper, mind you, that's already gotten rid of other sections and on many days of the week looks as thin and anemic as the local Metro.

So far, I've heard one story about this on our local NPR affiliate - facts, only - and zero uproar from the community. The Sun's section isn't the first to go - the Cincinnati Enquirer and Denver Post cut their sections. Meantime, I was talking to a group of editors a few weeks back, and one was lamenting the absence of her paper's features section. Her publisher had taken the damn thing away permanently, and none of her readers appeared to mind. There wasn't a single letter to the editor, not a whisper of complaint.

To me, this message rings loud and clear. Demands of news consumers have evolved, our economy has changed, and our industry has done little to adapt. Rather than continuing to slash staff, why not focus instead on developing a new business model? A smaller staff commanded to produce news in the same old way, relying on the same old ad network, ain't going to fix the problem.

I was thinking about some very successful businessmen I know, and what keeps their businesses well in the black when the economy goes sour. They each offer a product or service that's in demand and will always be in demand. Well, that's not so different from the news. It'll always be there to report, and I can't imagine a time or circumstance when citizens wouldn't want to know what's happening.

Those successful businessmen are somehow vertically integrated. They own the widget patent, they make the widgets, they own the supply chain. One company manufactures its own stuff in a single building, where they control every aspect of production. That same company distributes the product into stores that it owns. It even creates all of its own advertising, using employees as actors/ models.

The newspaper business isn't that different, I'd argue. News is gotten, vetted, written, edited and paginated all in one shop. In many cases, it's also printed in the same place or a place nearby, using newspaper company employees and machines that the company owns. Then the papers are distributed by drivers who work for the company and drive company trucks.

Now here's something that differentiates the successful businessmen I know from the newspaper industry: Those biz guys aren't afraid to take risks. They'll stick to their core concept or product...but they pour resources into R&D. They anticipate what might be the next industry disrupter. They embrace technology early. They don't operate as mega-bureaucracies, but instead as benevolent dictatorships where fresh ideas can be implemented without first having 50 meetings between various department heads.

The glacial rate of change in the newspaper business has a lot to do to these vast hierarchies and long tradition of sticking to what's been done. Sometimes, the wrong folks are promoted from within and become key decision makers - but they may not be forward-thinking enough, or willing to take chances. Add that to meeting upon meeting upon meeting and it could be six to 12 months before a new anything is tried. That's a shame.

Sam Zell holds the keys to some legendary news products all over the country, and the workforce - what's left of it - still claims some exceptionally talented journalists. Cutting more positions may temporarily solve budget issues, but what will really help in the long run is changing the culture of news organizations.