A decade ago I refereed a debate about the merits of copy editors on the 6th floor of a metro newspaper editing copy created by writers on the 8th floor of the same metro.

Granted, they were in different departments, and didn’t have the same background as their same-floor copy editors. But this big step would only be taken in an emergency, or in a copy crunch.

Great discussion by talented people, and a solution was reached that worked for all. The integrity of content was preserved. The expertise of talented copy editors was kept in play, and quality editing survived.

Some of those editors, but not many, are still in the business today, paying attention to words that matter and making sure every i is dotted and every t crossed. And every fact checked. And every addition error caught. And every slanderous statement eradicated.

It’s been a tough decade for the industry, but the true, career copy editor has felt as much or more pain as any editorial employee. Fewer editors, earlier deadlines so circulation can run longer routes - but then again, fewer stories to edit and fewer writers to correct.

The editor - copy editor, news editor, city editor - is the unheralded soul of a paper. They are nameless - to the public, anyway - experts. They are cherished by reporters who understand their role; they are dismissed by writers who want to take a shortcut, and get short-circuited by a good editor.

In that same 6th floor newsroom many years earlier I heard my city editor issue this plaintive wail: “Reetz, come up here and tell me why we ought to run this piece of s— in our newspaper.”

And I did, and we did.

Mellow, a few days later, he said, “don’t use the big words, write like people talk. Well, like smart people talk; not dumb people. It’s the best advice I can give you.”

Now, as papers seek ways to survive, there is no limit to the creativity of an industry trying to survive.

To one extreme, some papers outsource copy editing overseas, but there’s obviously quite a language gap in dealing with nuances of writing. More commonly, other papers  outsource copy editing to other papers in their corporate chain. More are outsourcing page design to their corporate newspaper partners.

A newspaper hundreds of miles away from its sister paper may be designing and laying out the pages, paginating them, and sending to a printing plant at a third sister paper. Then, after making the digital route, they get trucked back for home delivery, all in a few hours between midnight and dawn.

Now, we get to the heart of it all, and the chance for economies, and ability to trim expenses and survive: centralized printing locations and centralized data center operations.

Centralized printing is such a no-brainer. Anybody  who owned a weekly in the good old days used a job printer somewhere; USA Today, The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have been using distributed press operations for decades.
Centralized data center operations finally started popping up in the newspaper industry a decade or so ago, usually to handle something “neutral” like business or circulation systems. But now they are proliferating, providing homes for editorial systems and web content management systems, all under one corporate roof.

And the vendors stand ready to take the next giant leap.

There was a time when a massive IT department with hundreds of employees was a sign of success. No more, especially on the web side of newspapers. Success can be driven by smaller numbers, with tight and integrated vendor relationships, all built around the cloud.

Cloud computing is amazingly simple, and has been around a long time, but just now moving into the newspaper industry as these financial times force innovation.

From a web perspective, it’s as basic as working with a top-notch vendor, who provides not only the software, but the software updates. Plus the data center, and the hosting. Plus the redundancy. Plus the bandwidth. Plus the help desk. Support desk. Development team. And whatever other services they want to add on, and you want to purchase.

It’s not for everyone, and if you  have a challenging time with your supplier, you do have the issue of a lot of eggs in one basket. But it’d be the same if you were running it yourself. Not everything goes perfectly, even if you “think” you have “full control” internally.

If you’re interested in ways the industry is looking to survive, jump into the cloud, and read Ellie Behling’s analysis at emediavitals.com. She covers more bases with more depth and detail than I have done in this column.

Why do I care about cloud computing?

Maybe it will save a copy editor’s job, and the paper’s accuracy, all at the same time.

My dad’s ‘61 Ford - big, hulking, white with four doors, plenty of chrome and a blue cloth interior - was backed up, rear-end to the one-car garage, as night fell, ready for a running start before dawn the next day.

It was the one day of the year that the car was backed into the driveway. The one day.

It was the day we rousted up out of bed before dawn, sensed the dew on the ground in the soft morning chill, knowing the grass would be crackling and sizzling before high noon in East Texas, and it was high time to get out of town.

Sleepwalking through preparation, I marveled that my dad was so alert, fitting the metal ice chest into the truck, emptying ice cube trays into it to keep the milk chilled, and the grapes, too. Always green grapes. A food box was packed in the trunk, plus suitcases, and assorted other items.

And two pillows for the backseat, so my sister and I could immediately  go back to sleep as soon as we cleared the driveway and headed up the hill, to adventure.

Sometime on the second day of the road trip, after crossing the vastness of Texas, feeling the hot dust washing over you like a wave at the beach, it came into view.

Shiprock, New Mexico.

It’s in the Four Corners area, a place of mystical proportions, strange names, legends and mysteries…and always the gateway for whatever Western swing the Reetz family was embarking on that year. Sometimes we went east from Texas, driving to D.C., Niagara Falls, civilized places like that. But it seems more trips were headed West, and Shiprock always loomed as the point where the adventure began.

Sometimes we ended up on the Snake River, sometimes at Mount Rushmore or  Yellowstone, or in California, Colorado, Nevada or Arizona. But always beating it down the road, green grapes, half-chilled milk and slushy water sloshing around in the tin cooler. It was nice when the ice ran out; that meant sweet canned milk for my morning cereal on the road.

Shiprock became a place of familiarity, a beacon to the West.

So when I left the cozy environs of a corporate culture a couple years ago, started out on my own and began to build a media consulting business, I needed something to guide me, something to help show the way. Shiprock.

In Navajo history and culture it is a sacred spot, a “winged rock” that the Navajo rode to escape attack in a distant land. It gave them new life and security.

As it did for me.

Once before, I struck out on my own, buying a weekly newspaper in East Texas, but that was decades ago and the fire was in the belly. Was it still there? It never goes out.

Once a colleague said, “I like xxx consulting firm because I pay them and they write a report that says whatever I want it to say.”

Was that what I was going to be as a consultant?  I’d hate it.

And what a waste. Don’t you hire consultants  - experts - to provide a fresh perspective, to provide needed and missing expertise, to get things done?

Yes, most businesses do.

For the last two years I have worked with several wonderful major clients and never has anyone said “here’s what we want you to say.” Instead, it’s always, “here’s the problem, what do you think?”

It’s a great feeling working with people who want not just advice, but action, who embrace you as a team member and value your expertise.

It’s not a job for everyone, and many frankly could not do it. You cultivate relationships, you must stay at the top of your game in your industry, you know the vendors even better than before, and you thought you already knew them well. Everything is built around what you deliver and the value you add, not what your PowerPoint slides promise.

It’s always about what you deliver, and shouldn’t it always be that way? Because, after all, that’s what life is about. Not what you say you will do, but what you do.

If you’re out West, pass by Shiprock. Maybe it’ll move you, too.

I punched in the number of my Texas publisher/friend and started talking before he could reply to my ring.  He interrupted my jabbering with words I have never heard before.

“John, I’m at the slaughterhouse and having trouble getting this buffalo inside. It’s not going well. Got to call you back.”

Was Dan speaking in code? Was it a metaphor for the newspaper industry, which over the last few years has spilled lots of blood, and many more tears, yet the old buffalo still refuses to go quietly into that dark night, aka “slaughterhouse.”

Nah, it’s Dan and he’s not a code-talker. He’s direct. He WAS actually at the slaughterhouse, and he WAS struggling with a buffalo.

“They hear the noises, they smell the blood and they just don’t want to go inside,” he said the next day. Well, I would guess not.

I’ve stayed at Dan and Susan’s ranch many times, having the honor of occupying The Man House, his guest house that sits hard up against the fence-line, with Longhorns to this side, horses and donkeys the other direction. We’ve drained a bottle of whiskey or two, talking about the industry on more than one quiet ranch evening, seen lots of things, talked about even more.

But I’d never seen a buffalo there.

“Well, it was my buddy’s buffalo,” he told me the next day. “Now that I’m a retired publisher once again, I can just get up and go and do stuff  like this again.”

And that’s the whole point of this column.

Dan Savage, interim publisher of the Waco Tribune-Herald for the last eight months, is interim publisher no more. Call him “former.” For the second time.

Dan retired in 2005 as publisher of The Trib, but came back last summer when new local owners Clifton and Gordon Robinson bought the paper  from Cox Enterprises. Dan’s last column explains it all. How he and the Robinsons formed a tight friendship. How the paper prospered while others floundered.

An editorial the same day as his last column thanked Dan for all he has done for the community and the paper, during his two terms of duty.

And I thank him, too. He brought me on board to help build a new Web site and transition off the old Cox infrastructure. It was a pleasure and honor to work with Dan and his management team, to get to know the Robinsons and to be there as a paper bucked all the trends in today’s industry - making money, hiring reporters, growing circulation.

The Trib remains a closely held story. They don’t write press releases about how great they are. They just get it done.

There’s a phrase  in Texas about  braggarts and politicians who talk and don’t produce:  ”all hat and no cattle.”

Dan’s got the hat and the cattle. And the boots, too.

What does he do now? “Do what I do best,” he says. “Be a rancher and fix motorcycles.”