In Commonwealth magazine there was an interesting article about how the very best ownership model for newspaper could be owned by a non-profit foundation. In the article Dan Kennedy writes…

“Ownership, though, remains a hot topic—not just in Boston, but nationally. The Times Company, like Gannett and McClatchy, is a publicly traded corporation thats obliged to deliver the highest rate of return for its shareholders. Though the Times Company is somewhat insulated from the pressures of the market (chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and his family control the voting shares of stock), publicly traded companies in general have come under fire for their management of newspapers. Increasingly, the typical profit margins of corporate-owned newspapers—20 percent or higher—are seen as inconsistent with well-funded public-service journalism.”

I think there is very compelling evidence that a nonprofit foundation can run a successful newspaper, but I also don’t believe that a non-profit is the ownership method that we should try to get all newspapers to convert to. I’ve had dealings with newspapers owned by a publicly traded corporation, a newspaper owned by a single family (person) and newspapers owned by a non-profit foundation. It’s true that a profit margin can get in the way of running a journalistic community oriented paper, but without a profit all of the newspaper ownership models will fail except those with a rich owner willing to lose his fortune keeping a newspaper alive.

I once met the publisher of a newspaper owned by a non-profit foundation. He told me they were a for-profit newspaper owned by a non-profit foundation community foundation. Without the newspaper the foundation doesn’t have anything to give away and the more money the newspaper makes the more the foundation can invest in the community. But, corporately owned newspapers and family owned newspapers are also very involved in their communities and greatly contribute to community organizations.

My wife thinks MSNBC use of the Virginia Tech shooter’s photo is irresponsible. I’m not completely in that boat, but I could be persuaded to climb on board. The irresponsible argument chases down the possibility of copycats and the feelings of the families and those close to the victims. On the other hand, you could argue the photo is newsworthy and shows the attitude of the shooter whom everyone is trying to figure out.

I don’t think newspaper’s are dying, but many of the web’s top prognosticators are speculating that we are seeing the beginning of the end….

• Robert Scoble
• Tim O’Reilly
• Dave Winer
• Doc Searls
• Ryan Sholin

I do agree with them that if the newspaper industry as a whole doesn’t wake-up and change it’s operating model that it will be required to shrink it’s operations drastically due to declining revenue. But, I also see a lot newspapers (large, medium and small) embracing change and moving in a positive direction.

Have you seen the Newseum’s NewsMania game that updates the questions every day? I could literally play this everyday. I do well on the reporter level, but not so hot as an editor.

My wife, Jennifer, and I always compete on the MSNBC news quiz to see who does the best. She beat me bad last week with a 90 percent. I just gave up and didn’t take the quiz after looking at the questions.

If you’ve followed my newspaper posts, you’ve noticed that I’ve discussed the circulation declines and retrenchment of regional newspapers back into their metropolitan area. One area where the newspaper industry is not hurting is the small to medium market newspaper. Media Life reports 75 to 80 percent of the American newspaper industry is made up of smaller papers that are maintaining circulation or reporting small gains.

How? you may ask. Well, they are investing in content that reaches out and touches their individual reader. Steve Yelvington continues this conversation on his blog pointing out that it’s content about people you know and how local newspapers are “setting out to reconnect with real people living real lives.”

Mark Glaser takes an in depth look on his PBS Mediashift blog/column atnewspapers hiring programmers to work in the newsroom. Glaser highlights programmers with no journalism experience making the transition to a newsroom. Clyde Bentley from the Mizzou School of Journalism points out that most of their journalism students are trying to avoid math, so programming doesn’t come naturally to them. For me, I can handle programming and new technologies. It’s just finding time to experiment and play with them.

Didn’t get to attend the Inland Press Association’s Key Executives conference in Tuscon last week? Howard Owens shares a quick over of his notes from the IPA.

If you frequently read my blog you know that I enjoy web design, photography, politics and video production, but newspapers and online journalism are what really excite me. I am particularly interested in innovations at newspapers. In fact, I wrote my master’s thesis on online newspapers use of technology. Last week, Jay Small wrote a very interesting, extensive post on “making innovations at newspapers.”

The Roanoke Times and Roanoke.com has recently become one of the most celebrated online news operations (with references from Howard Owens and Rob Curley among others). Well, they are looking for a new editor and their ad for an editor is a little different because they are looking for a different kind of editor. They produced a website with a multimedia ad including a host who talks to you and welcomes you around the site (shot green screen supered in front of page of classifieds) and videos from reporters telling you what they want to see in a new editor.

Mega newspaper corporation Gannett reviewed their business strategy back in December in a report to investment banking house Credit Suisse. The reports are only available as mostly boring hour long audio files, so you can go and see all the highlights posted on the Innovation in College Media blog. Here’s a couple of highlights that made me take notice.

• Gannett has trained 380 new videographers.
• Local and hyper-local content is the key in a news conversation future.
• They will focus on developing thousands of microsites.