Much of the talk about newspapers these days is about the need for them to innovate and adapt to the Web … unless you are talking to the anonymous investor in this article listing 10 papers that will survive the chaos:

His view:

• For most of their existence, newspapers were steady sources of revenue that required little management — “cash cows that you put your brother in charge of.”
• This led to bloat at the large, public congolmerates that now own many of our best local newspapers.
• Then came the Internet. It brought some competition yes, but more devastatingly it brought the preception of a paradigm shift. Suddenly, the bloat-tolerant managers at the top of the newspaper chains couldn’t turn left without hearing from an equity analyst threatening to slap their company with a “sell” rating if it didn’t invest enough in the Internet.
• After a decade of investing in the Internet — but doing little to fight the bloat — the conglomerates are collapsing under a weight of debt.
• This debt remains and online ad revenues aren’t helping reduce it. The LA Times claims its online ad revenues pay for its newsroom, but our source doesn’t buy it. “You had to pull out the duct tape and rubber hoses to make [their formula] work,” he says.

Our guy is convinced that underneath the mess, there are plenty of local newspapers that, after cutting newsroom bloat and R&D costs, would be plenty profitable. He says these local newspapers just need to stop “spending on trying to find their way out” and “instead run their current good business.”

I bolded that last paragraph for emphasis. So it turns out what newspapers really need at this time is LESS R&D. All this time, the solution was right in front of us, and it’s oh so simple! With visionaries like this guy at the helm, how can newspapers fail?

What’s sad is that it’s people like this — the ones with the money — who often end up with the power to direct newspapers’ path. Is it any wonder the industry sucks at innovation? By the way, I’m starting to think maybe this guy bought my old paper. Or maybe they all just think the same way. The article says this guy has already invested millions into the industry and is in the process of spending more. I shudder for the newspapers that have benefitted from his … insights.