The big challenge, he says, is figuring out how to make money from the Web, where most news is free and ads are cheap. "If we don't start getting paid for news, we can't continue to afford to produce it," he said. Mr. Singleton wants to help steer the industry collectively toward a solution; no one paper, he says, can do it alone.

I detested that job within minutes of signing my W-2. It took me a year to extricate myself. Meanwhile, it was like watching one of those Discovery Channel "nature-is-horrible" shows. He prowled the newsroom each afternoon and then he began to circle one particular desk. Soon, one of my co-worker's autonomic nervous systems would be on overload. One editor in particular seemed to fear a Dowie encounter. That guy sported a thin, white moustache, which upon closer inspection was not facial hair but where the Maalox bottle had left a crusty imprint on his upper lip...While I worked at the Daily News in 1989, the newsroom staff voted in a union...Not long after the union came in, Dowie resigned from the Daily News "to spend more time with his family."