No, the issue in Los Angeles is the origin of change. Mark Willes, the new publisher of the paper who was originally hired to be chief executive of the parent company Times Mirror, came from the breakfast food business.

And you know those breakfast food people are just steeped in evil.

Now, of course, he also had a successful career at the Federal Reserve Bank, but that is only rarely mentioned in the coverage of the shake-up at the Times. Last time I checked, the Federal Reserve was certainly one of the least-tainted organizations in our society today.

No, Willes will probably never live down the fact that he came from General Mills, and any changes that he institutes are sure to bring squeals from the peanut gallery.

I have always had a distinct distrust of people coming from other industries into newspapers. As one who sold his first news story to a daily when he was 15, I believe that newspapering is something that should be in your blood: you should want to be in newspapers so badly that you'd be willing to do anything – including work at a 5000-circulation daily for less than subsistence wages (I never had to do it, but I was willing).

In my time in newspaper technology I have watched suppliers bring in top executive after top executive who had never seen the inside of a composing room and who had tried to sell into the business. They usually just didn't get it.

Willes, on the other hand, appears to have gotten it. I heard him speak in June at the World Newspaper Congress in Amsterdam and I found someone who at least mouthed the right words about editorial independence and integrity. I have read many interviews with him in the last two weeks – there is no question in my mind that Willes is deeply misunderstood. I like many of Willes' ideas.

(Some stink, but then, when was the last time a boss had an idea or two that didn't stink?)

Though many newspaper executives are lemming-like in following trends (don't forget color infographics and weather pages that swept the business shortly after the arrival of USA Today), I don't think we have to worry about newspapers around the United States setting up business operations that parallel the news sections for the next few years.

Inside, Senior Editor Pete Wetmore chats with three top Times executives and two former Times Mirror executives. (Full disclosure: Wetmore was an editor at The Sun of Baltimore, a Times Mirror paper, from 1978 through 1991.)

Let's give Willes and the Los Angeles Times some time to try out this idea. If the editorial team at the paper – a few of whom I know personally and trust implicitly – thinks business side is getting too cozy, I'm certain we'll hear about it; there would certainly be a brouhaha.

– David M. Cole

Inside ...

From NEWSINC., Oct. 27, 1997, Copyright © 1997, The Cole Group. All Rights Reserved.