When the New York Times Co. changed its mind recently about selling The Boston Globe, executives gave several reasons. One of them was particularly encouraging for the newspaper industry - what the Globe itself called "a successful gamble to raise subscription prices amid a recession."

The Globe meant that more subscribers than anticipated stuck with the paper despite the price hike. That yielded increased circulation revenue which along with several successful cost-cutting measures convinced the Times it should hang onto its high-caliber but struggling New England metro.

In a broader sense, the Globe's move shows that there is a core readership that is committed to newspapers, a readership that finds clear value in newspapers, a readership that is willing to pay a reasonable price for newspapers. Other major newspapers around the country have also resorted to significant prices increases. (I paid $9.50 for two Sunday papers recently.)

The challenge for newspapers now is to build on its increased circulation revenue, and that will require something besides constant price increases. The market will bear only so much of that.

What newspapers need to do is find a way to stop what amounts to giving away their best work. One part of this is to get aggregators like Google to pay for the content they've appropriated. That's going to be hard to do. Another part of this is to capitalize on the untapped value in the work of reporters, photographers and editors. This won't be easy either, but it may be more productive in the long run. The news-gathering process yields a great deal of information which is not used because the operation is geared toward production of a daily newspaper, with its limited space and aim to provide all kinds of news in one complete package. Skilled reporters and editors know that less is often more when it comes to presenting stories in the most effective way.

At the same time, a newspaper company could find ways to package and distribute some of the extra information it acquires in a form for which it can charge. Business, political and sports news lends itself to this.

With today's desktop publishing software and printing presses, a newspaper company could just as easily turn out glossy specialty publications as a daily newspaper printed on giant offset presses. The trick will be to devise such products - or deals with producers of such products - that can yield meaningful revenue.

Beyond that, newspaper companies would be well served by remaking themselves into information-gathering operations. They'll still produce a newspaper - thank goodness - but they'll also produce data, information and insight tailored to different audiences. The Web will figure into this, just how remains to be seen.

Newspapers by definition are a mile wide and an inch deep. Reporters move from story to story as they cover the news, and the newspaper is totally remade each day. The news staffs of tomorrow will likely come to include information gatherers, specialists who can drill down for data to go into specialty publications.

The fact that more newspaper readers than expected have accepted price increases shows that the work of journalists is valued. The skills that newspaper people have - reporting, research, writing, photography, editing, design - are skills that equip newspaper companies for a bright future.

NED BRISTOL is a member of The Sun Chronicle Editorial Board and a former editor of the newspaper.