Newspapers continue to search for new and innovative cost cutting measures. Too bad they are not nearly as aggressive in reinvigorating their core product. My main example is my experience with Mediabids. We have been around for 10 years, more than 8,500 publications use us, we have sold tens of thousands of ads for publications and yet, nearly everyday, we have conversations with publications who are skeptical about the idea of using a website to sell newspaper and magazine advertising. Just yesterday, I spoke to a large publishing company who has gone through layoffs, product closings and downsizing in the last year and yet, despite their dire financial situation, are nonchalant about the opportunity to sell ads to the 17,000 advertisers who use Mediabids to buy print ads. Many print publications are not in the state they are in by accident.

From The Chicago Tribune. Full story here

The Chicago Tribune and other Tribune Co. newspapers plan to utilize as little content from the Associated Press as practical during the week of Nov. 8.

The goal, as the papers review costs and needs, is to see whether severing ties with the news cooperative next fall is a viable option, the Chicago-based media company confirmed Monday.

The trial is scheduled to be conducted almost 13 months after Tribune Co. gave the AP a required two-year warning that it might drop the news service, effective Oct. 15, 2010. Tribune Co. said at the time that it was keeping its options open while weighing what role, if any, the AP would play in its future.