Write on a regular basis, pick topics people care about and be upfront about relationships you have with sponsors.

That’s some of the advice I shared in a 3 Questions column I wrote in yesterday’s Orange County Register. The column is regular Sunday feature compiled by the paper’s real estate columnist and my former colleague Jonathan Lanser.

Read the whole thing here.

Still, it was a surprise to read this AP story that the Orange County Register is conducting a one-month experiment to outsource some copyediting and page layouts to an editorial outsourcing firm in New Delhi, India. According to the AP account, the month-long trial with Mindworks Global Media will start by the end of June. In it, Mindworks will edit some stories for the Register and lay out one of community papers published by the Register’s parent company, Orange County Register Communications Inc. (Disclaimer: I worked at the OC Register from 1988 to 1995.)

The Register is only the latest newspaper to shift work to India: Mindworks started working with The Miami Herald in January. Late last year the Sacramento Bee said it would outsource some ad production to India, according to the AP report.

I’ve previously written about what newspapers could gain by shifting more editorial work to freelancers. It’s a logical combination of companies wanting to outsource costly functions – like paid editorial staff – to less costly providers – freelancers. It’s also feeds on the trend toward entrepreneurship, especially among Millennial workers who, according to experts, want to be their own bosses so they have more control over their work lives, work/life balance and get rich without having to climb the corporate ladder.

Why aren’t more newspapers going this route? Are they more comfortable outsourcing what could be termed the family jewels – a paper’s editorial product – to a country fall from home rather than to freelancers in their own backyard? That doesn’t make sense. It does point out, however, how little standing writers who are independent contractors have with newspapers and magazines. Maybe it’s up to freelancers to band together and create content and design outsourcing companies that they can pitch to newspapers. It might be out of the normal realm of many freelancers’ businesses, but given how many papers are laying off workers and folding whole sections – or folding entirely – it’d definitely be worth a shot.

With newspapers everywhere struggling to cut costs in the wake of falling revenue, it’s no surprise business sections are the first to go. Business doesn’t attract as many advertisers as news or sports sections. In that case, papers are wise to shrink the business news hole to keep operating costs in line with revenue. Many papers have already done this by relegating stock listings to weekend summaries, a smart move considering how many people now track their investments online. Papers have curtailed coverage of publicly traded companies outside their circulation area for the same reason.

So what does that leave business sections to cover? Actually, there’s plenty. Local companies. The impact of general economic trends on local businesses. Consumer advocacy. All important and ambitious subjects that no other news outlets can do quite as well – and I’m not forgetting about the weekly business journals in most cities. Though they’ve been around for a few decades, most business weeklies still fall short of the dailies’ editorial chops. It’ll be interesting to see if downsized business sections remain up to the task.

Newspapers see the future, and it’s digital. The latest evidence: earlier this week the New York Times Co. and three other investors sank $29.5 million into Automattic, the company that makes WordPress blogging software runs the WordPress.com free blogging Website. (Disclaimer: I use WordPress.com to create and host this blog.)

According to a news report, the Times was the smallest of the four investors – the others were venture capital firms. But the deal solidifies the paper’s existing relationship with Automattic, which the Times uses to host about 50 blogs, as well as About.com, the Internet information service it acquired in 2005.

As the Times investments illustrate, newspapers’ embrace of digital media has moved beyond erecting Web sites and asking reporters to write blogs. Consider:

• E.W. Scripps, the Cincinnati media conglomerate, is so jazzed about the prospects of its TV and online ventures the company is set to spin them off into a separate public company later this year.
• Ruport Murdoch, new owner of the Wall Street Journal, told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday that he will keep subscriptions for the paper’s online version, though prices will be higher and some “commodity” financial information will be free.
• I’ve already written about how the Los Angeles Times’ Innovations (read Web site) editor, Russ Stanton, is being mentioned as a front runner for the now vacant editor-in-chief gig.

At the same time, newspapers’ economic prospects are looking dim. The latest on that front: the Orange County Register, my old stomping grounds and the place I got started as a tech reporter, is killing its stand-alone Business section and folding it into the News section in one of several cost-cutting measures. When it does, it’ll be the only major daily in the country without a separate Business section. Ouch.

What does it mean for freelancers? Bone up on your coding skills. Seriously, as newspapers go through this transition to digital, it’s more important than ever to keep up with the times, and the Times. Maintaining a blog is one way. Seeking out Web-based work is another. If you don’t believe me, this blog post from Publishing 2.0 called The Only Way for Journalists to Understand the Web is Use It says it a lot more eloquently than I can.

That leads me back to Automattic. The investment is great news for the two-year-old start up, whose major competition includes Blogger, which Google bought in 2003. Other blogging software makers don’t have such deep pockets, but there are a lot of them, including Six Apart, which makes Movable Type and TypePad, plus a host of smaller proprietary and open-source blogging software makers. Automattic said it will use the investment to beef up projects like Akismet, a blog comment spam blocker.

 Updated on February 27, 2008: Thanks to the sharp-eyed reader who pointed out that WordPress is open source software. Automattic uses it to run the WordPress.com blogging Website.

It’s the worst of times at the Los Angeles Times. James O’Shea, the paper’s editor in chief resigned last week after a budget dispute with publisher David Hiller. This comes a month after real estate mogul Sam Zell took control of the paper and the rest of the Tribune Co. It’s the latest skirmish in a long and losing battle to keep the paper’s newsroom in tact in the face of changing ownership, economic woes and the evolution of the news business.

One possible bright spot: a report out this week that one of the two top candidates to replace O’Shea is Russ Stanton, a long-time business editor and reporter who’s been the paper’s Innovations editor for the past year. This is exciting for a couple reasons. First, Stanton is great. I worked with him in the early 1990s at the Orange County Register. He’s a smart, stand up guy. Second, the very fact that the powers that be would consider the editor of LATimes.com as a candidate for the paper’s top job means they get how important the online news biz is to the long-term health of the paper.

On the other hand, the LA Times has had four editors – and three publishers – since Tribune Co. acquired it from the Chandler family in 2000. With another new owner, declining revenues and abysmal staff morale, who’d want to be in charge?

Whatever happens, it’s putting Stanton and the paper’s Internet business in the spotlight, and that’s a good thing.