So a private investor has acquired the mighty Tribune Co. Why? “As a private company, Tribune will have greater flexibility to transform our publishing/interactive and broadcasting businesses with an eye toward long-term growth.” Dennis FitzSimons, Tribune’s chairman and chief executive, said. Left unsaid, of course, was any acknowledgment by FitzSimons of the pressure Tribune was under by dissident shareholders that forced the company to seek a new buyer.

Still, the potential privatization of Tribune that will follow once real estate tycoon Sam Zell finalizes his purchase does send an intriguing signal about the future of newspapers.

The debate began to emerge four years ago, as internal industry analysts began to realize that the quest for eye-watering profit levels were incompatible with the needs of an industry that had to reinvent itself in the digital age. My own statements over the years at least justify my saying that such a conclusion has long been inevitable.

Dean Singleton, chief executive of MediaNews Group, which owns dozens of papers including The Denver Post and San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News, heralded the public debate last June when he commented, “It’s better to be private than public because you gamble your own capital and when you’re ready to do it, you do it, where, as a public company, you’re gambling the market’s capital and the market’s jittery about it.”

Consider what happened to the papers McClatchy sold after it acquired Knight Ridder. Of the papers it turned over, more than a third went to private investors.

Days over?

It is clear — both from the stories that are permeating our industry, and the more sensitive reality that one picks up from publishers and potential investors — that the days of newspapers being in the hands of institutional shareholders may be over.

Of course the capitalist monkey on my right shoulder whispers away that stock market ownership is a good thing. I am — regrettably —one of Thatcher’s children.

But the romantic newspaper monkey on my left is haranguing me with facts that demonstrate that investors with blind, short-term motives have screwed our business good and proper, and now the screw is now turning another way. Can the same be said of private equity firms, who also manifest short-term ambitions? Some are good for our industry. Some not.

As I’ve noted before, over the last 20 years — in the United States and in the United Kingdom at least — newspaper companies have been torn apart by two equal and opposite forces of darkness.

In the blue corner stand avaricious shareholders, with as much understanding of the dynamics of our industry as a cigar cutter. They demand ever-increasing profits to compensate for their own underdeveloped creativity and aversion to risk.

In the red corner, journalists and editors have responded to requests for efficiency, flexibility and innovation as if it were a physical attack on Mother Theresa.

Where we are today

This lack of shared purpose has brought us to where we are today, and ironically, protagonists of both schools of thought are now bankrupt.

The irony is that as newspaper share prices lose their shine, the key victims are the shareholders who inhibited investment in growth in the first place. And along the way, thousands of journalists have lost their jobs simply because they were not prepared to modernize.

The motivations for this emerging group of press barons are not simply power and money. To buy into our world remains an expensive business. They recognize that the foundations of our industry are changing to our industry’s advantage. Community is the buzzword of the media world today. Community is where we started and community is to where we are returning.

As fewer citizens recognize and participate in the democratic process, the media will drive future empowerment. In the fog of blog, newspapers have a unique opportunity to create the catalyst for social engagement and change, by encouraging participation and debate, and creating a platform for insightful analysis.

Journalism, that quaint thing that we do between the ads, has never been more important. As everyone becomes a content provider and an opinion former, the role of the professional hack is going to be more important than ever before.

But the need for new thinking, and new ways of relating to our audiences, will benefit from greater vision at the top, and the willingness to change the business model.

Bring on the new entrepreneurs. Give us your excess cash. If you’ll put your money where your hearts are, then you will find a world of opportunity, and a vital role in society.

Jim Chisholm is joint principal of iMedia, Ifra’s joint venture advisory service. He can be contacted at jim.chisholm@imediaadvisory.com.