Aldam was eager to help Smith fix the inefficiencies in the newsroom. Aldam considered conducting an internal audit of newsroom functions, as the Courant had done. By doing a review in-house, the Courant had incurred few expenses and eliminated the risk that an outside consultant might misunderstand the paper’s culture and goals. But Aldam thought that at the Times Union it would be “great to have someone’s unbiased, objective point of view evaluating everything.” ^[11]

Patti Myers , a newspaper consultant based in Cincinnati, had worked with the Times Union in 2004 to help streamline the operations of the advertising department. She had earned the trust of the group. George Hearst , great-grandson of William Randolph Hearst and vice-president, associate publisher, and general manager of the Times Union , had hired Myers for that project. “She asked questions,” Hearst says. “By being probed and torqued... she gets you to come down the path that is the most appropriate.” ^[12] Hearst recommended the consultant to Aldam.

Listen to Myers discuss the problems in content integration.

Aldam met with Myers in the summer of 2006 and then introduced her to Smith. “I found Patti [Myers] to be intelligent and engaging,” Smith recalls. “She convinced me that enough change was coming that we had to really take a serious look at how we do things, that if [we didn’t], we wouldn’t be able to make the transition to a multimedia platform.” Myers’ specialty was mapping organizational processes and workflow in intricate, illustrated detail. George Hearst had suggested hiring Myers to look at the newsroom before, but former Publisher White had been skeptical about consultants, believing their services were not worth top-dollar prices.