What has happened in Willes' vision, it appears, is that revenue replaced news as the driving force of the institution. The ideology that Willes brings to newspapers is much the same. Were Willes called upon to innovate the U.S. military with a similar program, he would insist that fighting soldiers somehow increase the service branch's revenue. Weapons would be reduced to dollars. B ut of course no one is ready to say that fighting wars is a business and that soldiers and contractors need to work more cooperatively and innovatively.
Journalists are more like soldiers than salespersons.
Their weapons are words. The minute journalists surrender the point that news is a product and that newsgathering is a revenue-generating activity, they are in the wrong profession. It is incredibly tempting to think we can gather news that makes money. Whether we know it or not, we are in a war, and our only weapons are words and ideas, which is what Otis Chandler has fired at the revenue managers of his beloved Times.