Bankruptcy. Buyouts. Political scandal. It’s been a rough week, to say the least, for the Tribune Company. But just as necessity can be the mother of invention, adversity can be the mother of innovation. As the always enthusiastic Lee Abrams wrote about newspapers in a memo yesterday to Trib staff, “We need to figure out how to deliver this invaluable daily icon on today’s terms. Holding nothing sacred…. We’re all hoping the economy makes a sudden rebound and everything is just wonderful again. That would be nice, but I doubt that’ll happen. We need to adapt. The culture…the product and the focus need to get in sync regardless of how painful.”
How can we expect the Tribune Company’s newspapers to adapt—for better and for worse?
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The Editors are the staffers of the Columbia Journalism Review.