I’ve been a little hesitant to comment on the closure of the Albuquerque Tribune.  For those readers not in the greater Albuquerque area (Hi Dad!) the Tribune is/was our afternoon paper.  It’s never had the vast readership of the Albuquerque Journal, or the advantage of running in the mornings. For what it lacked there, it worked with aggressive journalism, local news focus, a tech and gaming section (which I liked), and great photography.

I have previously worked at the competition (the Journal) and the photography at the Tribune was amazing!  They put a lot of emphasis on the visual presentation of the pictures in the Tribune.  At the Journal the photography was the last thing they would talk about in the editorial meetings.  Usually the photo editor would be asked for his picture ideas at the end of the meeting, after all of the stories and where they would be in the paper were already selected.

The Trib doesn’t have to pass away.  It has been in Albuquerque for 85 years. But now it is on the edge of the cliff, about to be pushed over by Scripps – the company that owns them.  Interestingly, one of my sources inside the Trib told me that Scripps will keep receiving money from the Joint Operating Agreement, even without producing a product.  The company gets to keep the cash flow and doesn’t have to pay expenses.

Must be nice. But looking at this from a different angle, this could be the best thing to ever happen to the Tribune.  If someone else gets the newspaper with no JOA to constrain it, they can be financially sound and competitive at the same time.

I took media management in college.  I’ve toyed with the idea of running a news outlet before, but that takes a decent amount of cash and time.  The first I don’t have, and the second I only marginally have. 

But, in keeping with the persona of William de Worde – who ended up creating a newspaper in the Discworld’s city of Ankh Morpork  - if I had the money and time, here is how I would revamp the Tribune.

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