Patrick Beeson

Even in this depressed time for the newspaper industry, the news yesterday morning of Landmark Communications exploring the selling the company and its assets, including my former employer The Roanoke Times / roanoke.com, came as quite a surprise.

This, despite the buyouts of the previous summer.

From what I could tell during my nearly two years in Roanoke, the place had a culture of keeping folks around -- protecting their livelihood. When you became an employee you were an investment for the company.

And it felt good, really good.

I probably shouldn't write this, but it was somewhat of an inside joke that you couldn't get fired from The Roanoke Times. They held on that tightly.

But I suppose that might soon change with the result of the sale, should it go forward.

Like many folks, I'm very curious what to make of Frank Batten Jr.'s decision to sell Landmark's papers, Dominion Enterprises and its cash cow The Weather Channel / weather.com among other businesses.

The company felt well off financially when I left in February of last year: innovative journalism, good marketing, many new products being launch.

They also win a lot of awards.

Did things turn that quickly? Or is it merely time to cash in the ink-stained chips?

There is much speculation about the sale since nobody has received word about Batten or the other family members' intentions for the decision.

One Landmark newspaper, the Greensboro, N.C. News and Record, quotes Frank Daniels Jr., a former Landmark board member, who I believe gets close to that information:

"I don't see any uptick in the future" for newspaper companies. "The smartest thing they did," he said of Landmark, which he described as a "very well-run company, "was continue to invest in 'new media' and not buy any more newspapers."

I can't see this as good news for the industry as a whole when private media companies start selling off their assets during a downturn.

But if the downturn is the beginning of the end for newspapers as they've existed to this point, then maybe Batten is right to sell.

All I know is that I hope good news comes for the folks in Roanoke.