New buyers who actually want to talk about content!

For the first time in a long time, some good news about the fate of Canwest. The Toronto Star and others are reporting that a group of investors led by former Senator Jerry Grafstein is preparing to make an offer for three of the Canwest newspapers -- the Montreal Gazette, the Ottawa Citizen and the National Post.

What's so encouraging about this news is that not only does the group have background in the business (Grafstein was a founder of Citytv in Toronto, Ray Heard used to be an editor at the Montreal Star then he was an executive at Global TV and Beryl Wajsman is editor of a weekly newspaper in Quebec), they are actually talking about content!

The three are not talking about "synergies", not making this about bottom-line cost-effective delivery of news on all sorts of platforms. That's the kind of talk that led to Canwest's troubles.

Instead this group is talking about how newspapers would benefit from local involvement that would produce timely, informative, well-written stories and grassroots journalism reflecting the priorities of Canada's diverse communities.

Wow! No matter what happens with Canwest up for sale, the injection of this kind of interest -- interest for all the right reasons -- can only be good news for the news business.