Letting reporters sit at their desks and share inside dope with a video camera in three-to-five-minute bites is way more cost-efficient than printing news on paper or producing it for television and radio. How so? “Because of low studio-production costs,” Tierney says. “No legacy costs from printing and distribution, and I’ve already paid the talent.” Therefore, a huge chunk of any revenue goes directly to the bottom line. “Five years from now, online revenue should be over $75 million, and that should account for 25 to 30 percent of the profit for the company,” Tierney adds.

The pie-in-the-sky sound of that scenario is a common feature of digital-revenue plans in the newspaper industry. This one, at least, offers a chance of turning a large, expertise-heavy news staff into an asset. Its revenue projections don’t sound entirely unreasonable. The Inquirer hopes to gross $25 million from Philly.com this year, a respectable start toward the estimated $100 million that the Washington Post, which began its digital push earlier, hopes to top. Still, the Philly numbers are modest compared with the $40 million in annual debt service on the $365 million that Tierney and his backers borrowed to buy the Inquirer and Daily News.

Speaking of debt, a lot of people think that Zell, a diminutive motorcycle buff, was crazy to pay so much for Tribune Co.  The company’s stunning $78.8 million loss in the fourth quarter reinforced that impression, and this was before Zell showcased his habit of striding into newsroom meetings to a recording of “Born to Be Wild.” But Zell’s track record in real estate proves that being a motormouth who tells employees to fornicate with themselves may not be the same thing as being crazy.

Sun’s printing plant. “That land on the bay is worth a lot,” Zell told shaken Sun employees in March. The implication is that he could sell some of this real estate or use it to lure the publisher wannabes among the hemi-, demi-, semi-, and multibillionaires who yearn to own a glamour newspaper title. Despite its troubles, the Los Angeles Times could go for a huge price if Zell can entice Eli Broad, Ron Burkle, and David Geffen into a bidding war, and Zell is also dangling Newsday in front of Murdoch, Zuckerman, and Cablevision. Newspaper analysts everywhere are in suspense over whether Zell can break up his new company fast enough to come out ahead. Don’t bet against him yet.

Newspaper wars must be deeply puzzling to people from “normal” businesses, whether the battle is outside or inside the building. Is it ego or civic pride that makes rich guys, including Jack Welch, fantasize about being press barons? One clue: Citizen Kane was not about the C.E.O. of a plastics conglomerate.

It must seem strange too that newsroom employees get so angry at owners who risk buying into an ailing industry and try to salvage, say, 75 percent of their jobs. Well, reporters and editors—not excluding yours truly—are nostalgic idealists. We revere a largely imagined past, glorifying a few publishers with stainless-steel spines and forgetting the number crunchers at Hearst or Gannett who set profit margins of 25 or even 30 percent as the industry standard, quality be damned. Plus, as Zuckerman notes, people who want to run happy newspapers are expected to understand that “not all values are financial values.” American journalists believe that a guy like Sam Zell wouldn’t know a journalistic value if it hit the headlight of his Ducati.