USA TODAY COLUMN: …[John Henry] the new owner of the Boston Globe is one of a number of wealthy, newly minted newspaper owners who believe journalism is vital to a community and newspapers are not lost causes. Like Amazon.com founder and Chairman Jeff Bezos at The Washington Post and former greeting-card executive Aaron Kushner at the Orange County Register, Henry speaks of spending money to make the paper more vital rather than engaging in round after punishing round of cutbacks that weaken the product.
Henry, who purchased the paper for the fire-sale price of $70 million, also wants the Globe and its websites, BostonGlobe.com and Boston.com, to play a key role in the quest for an elusive new business model for journalism…
And speaking of the future, Henry stresses that he doesn’t see newspapers going away anytime soon. Just as television didn’t mean the death knell for movies and radio, Henry doesn’t think the plethora of free news that’s now available will mean the end of newspapers. In fact, he believes, it heightens their importance as a reliable venue to help readers sort things out… (more)
EDITOR: This is an article best read in its enetirety. We hope these investors are correct.
