While others are pessimistic about the newspaper business, David Black, the majority owner of the Star-Bulletin, is still bullish on the industry.

Black, an engineer by training with a master's in business administration, bought his first newspaper in 1973. His privately held Black Press owns more than 100 community, weekly and daily publications in Canada, Washington, Ohio and Hawaii, including the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

Black purchased the Star-Bulletin in 2000 when it was put up for sale as Honolulu Advertiser owner Gannett tried to end the joint operating agreement that ran the business operations of Star-Bulletin and Advertiser publishing.

Black's purchase of the Advertiser, announced Thursday, would likely leave the Canadian businessman and local investors Jeffrey and Lynn Watanabe, Duane Kurisu, Larry and Claire Johnson, Island Holdings Inc., Dan Case and C.S. Wo & Sons Ltd. with the only daily newspaper in Honolulu.

To satisfy U.S. Department of Justice concerns, Black will offer the Star-Bulletin for sale. If no buyer emerges, he said, he would combine the operations of the two newspapers under a new name.

Black said yesterday it was still too early to talk about the details of merging the Star-Bulletin and Advertiser. But he did discuss his general plans for Honolulu and his business philosophy. Here is an excerpt of the interview:

Question: What do you see as the role of a daily paper, especially if you are the only daily in town?

Answer: I think it's the same as it has always been. It doesn't matter if you're a big daily in a big city or a small weekly in a small town. The role is the same, basically reporting on what's going on in your area and mirroring back what you see. Also, you're trying to provide some leadership through opinion pieces and editorials. There's a watchdog element to it. I don't think democracy frankly works unless there are people watching. Dailies are better equipped with their large newsroom than anybody else to do that watching.

Q: What about its involvement with the community?

A: I'm not one who believes dailies should be standoffish and not be involved in the community.

I think that's wrong, and I think a newspaper is a vital part of a community and a vital element of change, of progressive change, and I think they have to be in there not just reporting, but also helping them and being a booster and being a cheerleader, keeping cities optimistic about themselves and improving themselves. Dailies form a variety of functions in our society, and we're going to do all of those.

Q: Why are you able to succeed in newspapers when others have failed?

A: I didn't have an overwhelming debt going into this recession. We were able to keep most of our profits. We didn't have as much erosion as some newspapers. That's all.

Q: It's just basic business?

A: I have great confidence in the (newspaper) industry going forward. I'm not of the belief that the industry is going away. I think we're definitely in a recession that's hurt the industry, and one has to cut costs. ... It's just business. Business has downs and ups, and you have to manage your business. ... Fortunately, I'm blessed by being surrounded by wonderful managers both here and on the mainland.

Q: What do you see as the role of the Internet with the newspaper?

A: Everybody's trying different things. I don't think anybody's got a good model yet. ... Most of the local city sites have revenues backing up.

Q: What do you mean backing up?

A: Going backwards, going down. We've had clients come to us and say that they took a lot of advertising out of the papers and put it into the Web, and then they come back and say it hasn't worked.

They put it back into newspapers, and all of a sudden their sales, these particular clients, their sales jumped again. So they're convinced newspapers are the place to be. ...

If your readership is going there, you want to be there, so most papers do provide a Web site, and usually the biggest Web site in any given town or city is the home newspaper.

They have news and newsrooms to work with, so that's a big advantage. But the jury is still out on whether there's going to be profit.