Jeff,
I worked with Howard Owens and Bill Blevins for a year when I was at
GateHouse Media New England.

We had some heated and passionate disagreements as is often the case
between local properties and Corporate. I found Howard to be a hard
working and knowledgable memeber of the team. Our industry is going
through some radical changes but the newspaper business model is still
a viable and good one. The turmoil we are going through now will cause
us to finally act or go away. Those papers that are pro active will
survive!

Howard and Bill have done some very innovative things online.
Including converting over 125 newspaper web sites in New England to a
new web platform in under 90 days. The news staffs were also enabled
with video capability at the same time.

The newspaper model is still a good one. We have to make radical
changes and some of us will. Your putting the blame for this on one
person and focusing on one company is very short sighted and shallow!

It's not clear who will survive the coming storm but the ones who do
can learn some valuable lessons from an entraprenurial company like
GateHouse. As well as Bill Blevins and Howard Owens.