The fact that 2006 has been tumultuous for The Sun will come as no shock to regular readers of this column. More than ever I get questions from subscribers, friends, neighbors and colleagues about the future of this newspaper.
These queries come partly because The Tribune Co., The Sun's corporate parent, has put itself up for sale, one of a number of major events that have affected The Sun and newspapers across the country in 2006. Shareholders unhappy with the performance of newspaper company stocks last year forced the sale of Knight Ridder's chain of newspapers. Now, Tribune is feeling the same kind of pressures.
As a result, a group of Baltimore investors has been talking to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The Sun itself about its interest in buying The Sun. This trend toward possible local ownership is occurring elsewhere. Several groups and individuals have expressed interest in buying other Tribune-owned newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times, The Harford Courant and Newsday as well as The Boston Globe, which is owned by The New York Times. Other investors seek to buy the entire Tribune Company. Some kind of decision by Tribune is expected early in 2007.
All of this, of course, is related to this year's acceleration of the long, steady decline in newspaper readership and advertising revenues. (The Sun's circulation dropped 4.5 percent daily and 9.1 percent on Sunday compared with last year.)
A consensus is building that for newspapers such as The Sun to survive in anything like their present form, they will have to go through a period of rapid evolution - to build Internet readership and revenues to replace declining print income. What's encouraging is that The Sun is adapting to the changing media environment and is working hard to help build and enhance the newspaper's Web site.
The newspaper is more aggressively covering daily breaking news on baltimoresun.com - where the creation of an "All News Desk" has accelerated to a flow of stories from the newsroom to the Web site throughout the day. The All News Desk also oversees getting specific content from the newsroom, such as blogs, Web videos, Q&As and polls, to the Web site. Podcasts with reporters are increasingly found on the Web site, as are sophisticated news and feature photo portfolios with narration.
It's important to remember that even though more people in Maryland are getting their news online or from radio and TV, the majority of the original reporting found on radio, TV and the Internet is produced by daily newspapers, especially by The Sun.
