A former Rocky Mountain News reporter has started a new life as the owner and operator, editor, advertising sales manager, and principal reporter of a small newspaper in New Mexico.  His operation serves as an example of a new model of print media, that may save small town newspapers from demise.  M. E. Sprengelmeyer calls it a “Tom Sawyer” business plan, convincing his friends, including several former Rockey Mountain News colleagues, how fun it would be to send him free businesss.  From The New York Times:

Of the thousands of paths taken by journalists who have been cast off by shrinking metropolitan newspapers, Mr. Sprengelmeyer’s is one of the more unusual, and one of the more hopeful. While bringing some big-city professionalism to a distinctly small-time operation, he says he is making enough money to support himself, and he has been able to assign some freelance work to a few underemployed former colleagues.

At least half a dozen veterans of The Rocky and other papers have contributed to The Communicator in the last two months — most paid, a few pro bono — and more are in the pipeline. Two have become regulars: Mark Holm, a photographer and former photo editor at The Rocky and several other papers, and Drew Litton, a former Rocky cartoonist.