Newspaper leaders see promising future

Is the newspaper business broken, for print as it currently exists? "Yes, irretrievably," said John Paton, the CEO of Digital First, which runs the Journal Register Co. and MediaNews Group, the company that includes the San Jose Mercury News. Yet despite that stark declaration, Paton came to BIA Kelsey's Interactive Local Media West conference with a message of determined optimism. Digital First's Journal Register Co. is seeing solid growth in digital ad revenue, and Paton said he is confident that MediaNews Group, which only recently came under Digital First's control, will follow suit.