Tribune Co.'s (NYSE:TRB) No. 2 shareholder has hired the Blackstone Group to advise it on its investment in the beleaguered media company, according to Bloomberg News.

What makes this development particularly embarrassing is that the shareholder in question is the Robert McCormack Tribune Foundation, which is run by Tribune CEO Dennis FitzSimons. The foundation's ties to Tribune are deep. Robert McCormack and Joseph Medill Peterson assumed ownership of the company in 1912. Tribune was founded by their grandfather Joseph Medill.

Blackstone has its work cut out for it. The Chicago-based company has gotten a lukewarm response at best ever since it announced in September that it was considering a sale. It's received unsolicited bids for the Los Angeles Times from three billionaires. Pressure is mounting on Tribune from big shareholders including The Chandler family, whose Times Mirror firm was sold to Tribune in 2000.

I am not sure whether the wannabe publishers of the LA Times are letting hubris cloud their business judgment. The newspaper business is lousy and will continue to be lousy for some time. Local owners will face the same issues of declining circulation and the shift of advertising online that have vexed media conglomerates. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the advice Blackstone will give the McCormack Foundation will related to the sale of the paper, which despite huge problems remains a marquee property. You can bet that the shareholders of the New York Times Co. (NYSE:NYT) are watching these developments closely.

Dow Jones (NYSE:DJ) has heard the clarion call of the Internet and responded with a sweeping redesign of the Wall Street Journal, about three years too late. Despite all of the talk in the Reader's Guide in today's paper about "excellence" and meeting the expectations of today's busy reader, the reasons for the changes have more to do with the shift of advertising to the internet and a desire to cut down on newsprint costs. Neither trend is new and Dow Jones probably should have reduced the size of the paper several years ago. The company shrunk the international edition of the Journal in 2005. Dow Jones estimates that it will save $18 million from the changes to the Journal.

The design itself will take some getting used to. The Journal is 20 percent narrower which will make it easier for commuters to handle. Dow Jones says it will be running "the same or more news articles than we do today." I like the look overall. The paper seems easier to read and the graphics are improved. It wouldn't surprise me if the New York Times (NYSE:NYT) made similar changes.

But for the long-suffering Dow Jones investors, the question remains whether this is going to make a difference in terms of advertising and circulation revenue. The jury will be out on that question for a while. Newspapers, as has been said ad nauseum, need to change in order to survive. Though internet revenue is growing by leaps and bounds, it remains a small slice of the pie for publishers. Dow Jones is trying to make the Journal more relevant and appealing to a broader set of advertisers. Still, about the only thing that seems to move the company's stock is rumors of a possible sale.