Citing an historic shift in business model and otherwise impending doom, Reuters’ Jack Shafer has some provocative advice for The New York Times:

Even given all that, the Times Co. crisis isn’t immediate — thanks to the asset-sell-off — merely pending. It has only two alternatives I can imagine, neither of them savory for the Ochs-Sulzberger family, which has owned the controlling shares in the company since 1896. It can continue to divest, downsize, and retrench its way to profitability or it can pass the newspaper on to a billionaire who possesses the desire to sustain it, a goal even Times haters must support on some level. The obvious billionaire, who has expressed such an interest in the past, is Michael Bloomberg, the brilliant entrepreneur behind Bloomberg LP., the mayor of New York City, and the self-appointed Caesar of America. Bloomberg could swallow the Times for breakfast and not be hungry for another acquisition until lunch.