Aaron Kushner (newspapers’ Harold Hill) is in Trouble with a capital T

You kinda love Harold Hill when you watch “The Music Man,” even though you know he’s a hustler. But the “think system” only works on stage or screen with an audience of adoring and forgiving parents. However charming he was, Hill was still a hustler. And the think system doesn’t work in the news business. You have to be able to play or you’re in trouble with a capital T.

Aaron Kushner was a hustler* who blew into Orange County, California in 2012, as though it were River City, Iowa, and he had some band instruments — er, newspapers — to sell. I kinda rooted for him, but I also kinda knew the Orange County Register and Freedom Communications had trouble in their future.

When Kushner bought the Orange County Register and announced a bold, expensive print-first initiative, I thought it would probably crash and burn quickly, but I wanted it to succeed.

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Saluting friends and colleagues at Freedom

With all the upheaval going on in the newspaper business, the sale of Freedom Communications piece by piece is getting relatively little notice. Warren Buffett wasn’t the buyer and staff cuts were not as dramatic as those going on at Advance Communications.

But I noticed.

In my three years at the American Press Institute, Freedom was by far my leading client. I led regional seminars for newsroom staff members in Destin, Fla.; McAllen, Texas, and New Bern, N.C. I spoke at editors’ conferences in Dallas, Tempe, Ariz., (publishers joined that conference) and San Antonio. I spoke at a National Writers’ Workshop in Fullerton, Calif., hosted by the Orange County Register.

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