Tribune publisher outlines bold reform plan at symposium.

According to Illinois native John Tucker, the new publisher of the Tribune (and its sister newspaper, the Evening News), bringing his family to Floyd County fulfills a personal desire to “put down roots,” while taking on the task of revitalizing the Tribune provides an “opportunity to bring back something that is needed.”

Inferring from his comments last night during a Public Affairs Symposium at Destinations Booksellers, Mr. Tucker understands that reversing a workplace culture of long-term underachievement at the very same time as seeking secure and profitable footing in a changing media marketplace constitutes heavy professional lifting of a high order, but that he relishes the challenge and is being fully supported by the corporate office at Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc., which views the Tribune reclamation project as the company’s “biggest challenge” at the present time.

In terms of its journalistic mission, Mr. Tucker views the Tribune as a “community newspaper,” one that must strive for balance in its goal of “doing right by the community” without sacrificing its obligation to serve as watchdog in community affairs, readily conceding that the Tribune has functioned ineffectively when it comes to the latter, and bluntly acknowledging that the newspaper has much improvement to make if it expects to be taken seriously.

Furthermore, as “community newspapers,” the Tribune and Evening News must stand on their own, not function merely as adjuncts of the powerful Courier-Journal.

With refreshingly candor, Mr. Tucker provided detailed answers to all questions asked of him, ranging from an honest assessment of industry profits – “newspapers used to make truckloads and truckloads of money, but now it is just truckloads” – to the difficulties in weaning circulation departments from over-reliance on telemarketing to sell newspapers.

In short, by the end of 2005, Tribune readers can expect noticeable changes, and Mr. Tucker earnestly predicts that we’ll be surprised at how fast these changes take place during the coming months.

If John Tucker’s crash program of glasnost and perestroika succeeds in implementing his vision of a Tribune as the newspaper should and might be, the benefits to our community are incalculable.

As with any reform program implemented within any human institution, there is bound to be fervent resistance, both from within and without, such as we see now with the reaction in a small, brutish minority of the community to such unfamiliar concepts as “change” and “progress.”

However, there is a healthy and growing constituency for progress in New Albany, and a local newspaper that functions in the manner outlined by Mr. Tucker last night at the symposium certainly must be counted at the very least as a fellow traveler in the push for sustainable progress in the community.