Abrams shrugs off newspaper cuts

Radio guy turned Tribune innovation guru Lee Abrams is talking a lot these days. Today, Portfolio's Jeff Bercovici caught up to him at the Dow Jones/Nielsen Media & Money conference and asked a few questions. Abrams likes to think the criticism he receives is from old media dinosaurs opposed to change, rather than because he's viewed as not well informed or much of an innovator. He also says the reductions in staff and content at Sam Zell's newspapers haven't hurt the product. Some excerpts:

We need to go through the exercise of completely rethinking everything the newspaper does, not only as far as staffing and all that, but the actual content itself....

Some people didn't get it, and they're gone. They were just really adamant about, 'No, I don't want to change or evolve.' So we had to find the people that did and put them in a room and just liberate their thinking....

There was a big myth that you could not have these [newsroom] cuts that were going through and still produce a quality newspaper, and that's just nonsense....We've been through some pretty substantial cuts, and there were people who thought, "No, it's going to be horrible, you just can't do it, it's going to be dumbed down." And no, it just had to be rethought. It's just as intelligent and engaging as ever, just with fewer people.

Sam's a brilliant guy. He sees that these radio, internet, all these other properties have tremendous potential, they've been horribly mismanaged, and have to evolve and get in sync with what's going on today. He's going to properly manage it and get it in sync. I think he's looking at a home run here.

Also, here is Abrams latest "think piece" and a transcript from On the Media.

Yipes, fixed 'Portfolio' from 'Politico'...my mistake