That might seem counterintuitive. After all, what about all the reasons papers went public in the 80s? Public ownership, shareholder involvement, bigger growth potential — all irrelevant now? The truth is that the value in these selling points began draining years ago, as newspaper conglomerates struggled under the yoke of Wall Street’s continual earnings demands.

Take Knight Ridder. Principal stockholder Bruce Sherman, frustrated with lagging profits, managed to instigate the sale of the company’s 32 daily papers. McClatchy Co. bought them all and sold off 12, fracturing what was the second largest newspaper chain in the U.S. And now Tribune Co. finds itself in what some media analysts are labeling an eerily similar situation, with the powerful Chandlers demanding a major reorganization of the company’s assets — or else.

So private ownership is looking more and more like the way to go, since the other way isn’t working. Profit-driven investors want more than newspapers — awkwardly torn between their traditional way of functioning and the demands of the digital age — can offer.

Along with talk of a return to private ownership surfaces a new set of concerns. Isn’t local ownership limiting? And doesn’t it grant the owner too much power over the news?

Possibly. So much depends on the owner. But with the boom in online news and media innovations, small, local papers with niche markets are winning out in the battle to retain readers. Maybe localization, both of product and publisher, is the way out for newspapers.

But it’s still too early to label delisting a solution. Tribune’s fate is undetermined, and the aftermath of the McClatchy buyout has yet to play out. Right now, it’s a response: a response to angry shareholders, to disillusioned Wall Street investors, to the financial decline of a fundamental and undervalued public service.

Source: The Washington Post, Reuters, CJR