New L.A. Times publisher David Hiller read the paper's story on itself this mornng and emailed a missive to the staff asking them to devote time thinking about the paper's future:

From: Hiller, David
Sent: Friday, November 10, 2006 8:27 AM
Subject: Play it Forward

Folks,

I'm sure you will all see Jim Rainey's excellent retrospective piece in today's paper on the six years of The Times and Tribune living together. And I'm sure there are lessons in there.

But I'm going to make what I hope you won't think an odd request. If you read the piece, time yourself, and promise me you will spend an equal amount of time today thinking about the future of this newspaper.

Play the story forward, and imagine the news stories we would like to see over the next year about how we are looking and moving ahead. (Only one story allowed on new local ownership. [smiley]) Let's think about the story of how we grew our local audience by re-connecting with Southern California; the story about how the Spring Street Project changed forever how we worked across print and online; how we reached out to our Latino community and audience like never before (including through wonderful programs like last night's on the Siqueiros mural that Patt Morrison and Suzanne Muchnic helped lead); and many others we will invent and write. And if you come up with some, send them to me. I love reading about the future.

David