The economics of the paper are never far from sight or mind at Mark Willes' Los Angeles Times . Television monitors throughout the building display the stock price on a daily basis. In a speech last year, Willes described his vision of the newspaper's future. The various sections of the paper have or are developing business plans that include ways to measure income, costs and readership. But every section must improve in some measurable way.
Business success is required to underwrite journalistic success.
Willes has always maintained that this injection of business sense would not jeopardize the paper's editorial integrity. Let me talk about one thing we are not changing, and that is our focus on and our commitment to the practice of high-quality, independent journalism. But to some newspaper traditionalists like Ben Bagdikian, the notion of the business side of the paper commingling with the editorial side is heresy. That's very close to corruption, not because either party is corrupt, but because both parties are looking in different directions. When you put them together, you are having one party whose obligation it is to make money and not offend the people who provide the money to help select the news.