Except for USA Today, Gannett is planning to switch all its newspapers to a paid model by the end of 2012. "We will begin to restrict access to non-subscribers," said Bob Dickey, president of community publishing.

Portland Guild President Tom Bell and Vice President Greg Kesich, pictured, are interviewed by local radio station WMGP about Donald Sussman's new investment in the city's newspaper. Photo by Shawn Ouellette.

Buzz Bissinger, a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter and Guild member in the 1980s, says tthe city's two daily newspapers are at risk if sold to a too-powerful group of investors led by former Gov. Ed Rendell.  "If the sale goes through, Philadelphia will become the first major city in the country to actually cease to have a real daily newspaper. There will still be print and online products, sure, but those products will be owned by a group of power-hungry politicians and politically connected businessmen who, far from respecting independent journalism, despise it," Bissinger writes.

The investment in MaineToday Media Inc. by billionaire businessman and philanthropist Donald Sussman reflects a small but emerging trend of buyers and investors looking at newspapers as more of a civic enterprise than a money-making opportunity, say national media experts. Photo: Newspaper Guild members in the Portland Press Herald newsroom.