Can ex-newspaper journos invent new news biz models?

My latest (“March”) Editor & Publisher Online column was published today:

Can Former Newspaper Employees Invent a Brave New News Model?

This is actually my March column because I ran into an odd situation that held up publication till today. Mid-March, I interviewed Ron James, founder and publisher/executive editor of start-up San Diego News Network, which is part of the column. Then I went on vacation for a week, and wrote up the piece when I returned, getting it to my E&P editor before the end of the month.

The universe must have been looking out for me, because I e-mailed my draft to E&P’s Shawn Moynihan, but he didn’t get it. Meantime, I got a phone call this week from San Diego journalists Randy Dotinga, who writes for Voice of San Diego, a non-profit online news venture, on another topic. He happened to mention that late last week, while I was on vacation, James had been ousted from his role at SDNN. Thank you Randy, for saving me from publishing an embarrassing error, and thank you universe for sending my e-mail to Shawn into a black hole!

Anyway, the column is accurate now. As for James, he’s still the founder of SDNN and retains a financial interest, but no longer a day to day role. As I describe in my column, SDNN has an interesting model that’ll be worth watching.