The Fourth Estate is having...

Oh Sweet "Media"

The Media is changing, shuffling, and kinda freaking. I'm in it so I see it, live it, hear it every day. The changing of trends and means of data communication is a large part of my ongoing education and one of the reasons the San Diego Business Club project even exists. I heart evolution, I can't wait to find out what's next, and I hope I survive.

So today's "next" is the failing health of our San Diego print King.

In the midst of declining revenues and unsuccessful adaptations to an ever-confusing business model, our local paper, the SD Union Tribune has been sold.

Keep in mind that "our paper", the San Diego paper, has been owned for years by a semi-interested, party boy who inherited the paper from his mega-rich adoptive parents. So the go-get-em, tough as nails, hard nosed journalism blood has been exsanguinated for quite a while. Like many mass appeal print publications, the U.T. has been suffering a diminishing relevance in the face of up-to-the-second news and it's large circulation requirements fail to inspire the polarization that often fuels a readers passion. That's not to say they don't have opinions, it just seems that they are dealt with in more of a passive aggressive way. They just don't give it any ink.

Platinum Equity, based in Beverly Hills, Calif., added the newspaper to it's portfolio of investments, calling it "a good fit." Nobody seems to know exactly what this means, so at the very least, this is going to be fascinating. Their other investments are all over the place. I can't wait to see how this fits in with the fiberglass, pharmacueticals, and phone equipment they already have in their stable of unstable businesses.

As social media dominates the latest information age, how will an investment firm make newsprint work. Come to think of it, how do we adapt traditional publishing to the new social model?

Is old school publishing anti-social?

With a self referential term like The Fourth Estate... maybe it is.