A few weeks ago the word was that the Los Angeles Times' "Manhattan project" (renamed "Spring Street") report had disappeared into the bureaucracy, never to be seen again. But it resurfaced today full of fury in a major shakeup outlined by Staci Kramer at paidContent.org. This is a big deal, and is especially remarkable considering the conditions under which it's happening. Ordinarily, when a company is on the auction block, paralysis ensues -- not radical change.

Earlier this week I was in St. Petersburg for a meeting of AP's Digital Advisory Committee. I'm not going to blog what transpired there, because it's a forum for discussing some confidential strategic issues, but I heard one thing that's such a good idea I just have to pass it along.

It always happens this way, and it's always my own darn fault: travel comes in unreasonable bursts.

I've done little blogging lately because I've been on the road, and I rarely have the combination of quiet thinking time and a good Internet connection that I need to construct a meaningful blog post.

So far this year I've been in Los Angeles, Memphis, St. Petersburg (Florida, not the colder one) and now Jacksonville, where I'm doing some work with one of our newspapers that I'll be able to discuss once the project is made public.

A belief that "it's all Wall Street's fault" continues to persist in some newspaper circles. It's not.

Writing for the Winter issue of Nieman Reports, economist Robert Picard says:

Howard Weaver points to a Washpost piece on newspapers and video, and suggests a "good enough" approach:

"... we don't need to be creating 60 Minutes quality television to get in the game. In fact, you might well argue that the opposite is true. I'd love to see us using cinéma vérité video to add value to all kinds of reporting. In Fresno, they've had good success using little digital video cameras that sell for less than $200."

William Powers, writing for the National Journal:

"A dozen years ago, at the start of the digital-news era, a lot of media outlets assumed that the way to thrive in this new landscape of news was to be agnostic as to medium. ...

"That philosophy gave us, among other things, those baggy newspaper Web sites that try to be one-stop destinations for every kind of content .... By being all things to all consumers, they lack the identity that builds loyalty. ...