At a site called Newspaper Death Watch, one Paul Gillin looks at a New England woman named Bobbie Carlton. who organizes marketing seminars for small businesses. Gillin finds in Carlton’s work one answer to the dilemma of “how to save local newspapers.”

Gillin surmises that, historically, local papers were local merchants’ de facto advertising and publicity advisers. Therefore, local papers could formalize and expand these relationships, turning themselves into full-range media advisors. For an appropriate fee, they’d help merchants build and maintain Web sites, engage in online social networking, send targeted email notices, and otherwise get their businesses out into their communities.

This idea could help the companies that put out local papers. But would it do anything to support newsrooms?