Psst—Wanna buy a newspaper?

The Boston Globe is worth a dollar, according to news biz analyst Ken Doctor. That’s just a bit less than the New York Times paid for the newspaper back in 1993 – about $1.1 billion less. Essentially the new owner would simply assume the costs and the New York Times could walk away and stick to its own knitting.

The Gray Lady is also in trouble, in this not-so-exclusive club of major city newspapers on the ropes. Add it to the list that includes The Chicago Tribune, struggling after being bought by Sam Zell, and the Rocky Mountain News, which folded this year. Boston’s local competition, The Christian Science Monitor, went to a weekly print edition in 2009, shifting to an online-only model for its daily news. A recent New Yorker article on Mexican mogul Carlos Slim covered his investment in the New York paper and the possibility that he’ll buy the whole thing, if the Sulzberger family decides to sell. And they might. Every family has its price, as the Bancrofts showed us when they sold The Wall Street Journal to Rupert Murdoch.

While there’s a sense of betrayal about the Times selling or closing down the Globe, it’s not unusual. Back in the 1990s, San Antonio, Texas, was a two-newspaper town, with papers owned by giants Hearst and News Corp. Hearst acquired its rival paper, San Antonio Express-News, and shut down its own paper, The Light. There are still plenty of reporters who are bitter about that.

Even with a buyer, the Globe will have to revamp its operations substantially and may even have to follow the Christian Science Monitor example of shifting from print to online delivery. We’ve heard plenty about how readers are loathe to pay for online news, but someone is going to have to. I think in this respect that the Kindle and other e-readers will help. Kindle users are used to paying for content – how much different will it be to pay a few bucks for a book or for a newspaper subscription? News aggregators such as Google, likewise, will have to pay syndication fees for the news they deliver. Online delivery will also help solve another problem – the aging of the customer base that reads newspapers. This was an issue plaguing the industry and it isn’t going to go away. To attract younger readers, newspapers have to go where the kids are.

If newspapers can position themselves as news delivery services, and if the general zeitgeist can accept that one pays for information, even if it is online, the industry can overcome its current malaise and prosper. It might not be easy and it might not be quick, but it can happen. Let’s hope the Boston Globe will get an owner who will help it make that transition. Because we shouldn’t be losing newspapers, not now, not in this day and age. Information may want to be free, but when it comes to that, you get what you pay for.