Newspapers face equal uncertainty. Smaller bets, however, often prove attractive to diversified media companies with deep roots in the newspaper business. Cox also aims to create electronic-service synergy among its newspapers. Piggybacking enhanced Web services developed by its larger papers onto the on-line services of its smaller operations could make those smaller operations more diverse and attractive. The Olympic Web site could also prove a testing ground for synergy between broadcast and newspapers.
Some observers see the local news franchise of newspapers as an unassailable rock-bottom asset.
If you strip away the production and the advertising functions and a lot of the traditional departments, what will survive and function as part of these diversified communication corporations will be editorial. Others are not so sure. Jones expresses concern that the cost-cutting strategies undertaken by several large companies to raise profits have cut too deeply into editorial budgets. Effective local competition could negate newspapers' advantage, he says, regardless of whether newspapers face it alone or as components of larger media conglomerates. The people likely to do that will be the ones who used to work at local newspapers.