“Who is the real Dean Singleton?” asked The Columbia Journalism Review in 2003 about the man named by Crain’s Chicago Business as top dog on a company heard as possible buyer of the Sun-Times.

Is he a mass murderer of newspapers, or is he a man whose hardheaded pragmatism has enabled him, in a difficult period for the industry, to preserve many more newspaper jobs than he has eliminated?

S-T business editor Dan Miller is not waiting to find out.  He resigned today “before he becomes a casualty of pending staff cuts,” reported Crain’s.

Singleton’s Media News Group is not interested in buying S-T, they told Crain’s.

Among those nailing Singleton for the Columbia review article was former Chi Trib editor James Squires, who called him a “bone-picker publisher . . . who can wring blood from a turnip.”

This guy is on to something, or three things, that shed some light on the Great Newspaper Conundrum of our day, especially in Chicago, where the Sun-Times seems to be in dire straits:

The way I see it, newspapers, for now, are positioned to provide three things that are at a high premium and that most blogs/bloggers can’t deliver. I think most would be wise to capitalize on these by shifting the state of mind from being a newspaper to becoming a news organization/outlet/center:

If you want to know the three things, look here.