One way to boost sagging profits: Shatter the traditional barrier between editorial and business employees and create sections targeting specific audiences that, in turn, would attract advertisers.

Times Mirror's sale to the Tribune Co. on Monday in a $6.3 billion deal seems to have ended Willes' experiment at the Los Angeles Times, which critics assailed as an attack on journalistic integrity.

Willes, a former General Mills executive with no previous journalism experience, said he wasn't told of the buyout talks until two weeks ago and will leave once the deal is complete.

Otis Chandler, the legendary former publisher who led the newspaper from 1960 to 1980, seemed to give the deal tacit approval in today's editions of the Times.

"Of all the people, of all the media companies that Times Mirror could join, this is the most logical and probably the best company," Chandler said.

Some employees, although uncertain about their future, said the sale might end up benefiting the Times because it transfers ownership to a company with a long history in newspaper publishing.

"They know a solid newspaper company will be in charge of the newspaper again," said Brett Levy, who works in the Times' information technology department.

The deal will create a coast-to-coast media empire encompassing the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, New York's Newsday, The Sun of Baltimore, 22 TV stations, Internet news sites and magazines such as Popular Science, Golf and Field & Stream.

With the acquisition, the Tribune Co. would become the nation's third-largest newspaper company with total daily circulation of 3.6 million. Only Gannett Co. Inc., which publishes USA Today, and Knight Ridder would be larger.

Times Mirror hired Willes in 1995 to boost the company's lagging profits and share price. His policies apparently resulted in a major embarrassment for the Los Angeles Times when the newspaper shared revenue with a new sports arena, the Staples Center, from a special issue of the Times' magazine devoted to the arena.

"The Times survived as a pretty good newspaper despite him," said Edwin Guthman, a journalism professor at the University of Southern California and a former national editor of the Times.

Despite the criticism against him, Willes was not the only newspaper executive to experiment with such newsroom cooperation.

Other papers across the nation are trying similar approaches but do so outside the glare of public scrutiny, said Bill Boyd, a faculty member at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., a journalism education center and think tank.

"The fact it didn't work out for him doesn't mean it can't work," he said.

More importantly, Boyd said, today's newsroom debate focuses more on how different media outlets owned by the same company — such as newspapers, television stations and Internet sites — will cooperate.

"I suspect there will be more emphasis in breaking down those walls, the walls between media, than on the walls between departments," Boyd said.

Employee reaction at Times Mirror properties was a mix of anxiety and anticipation at the news of the sale.

"I think we live in an age now where things come and go," said Frederick N. Rasmussen, obituary writer for The Sun. "You just get used to it."

Bill Dwyre, the Los Angeles Times' sports editor for 19 years, cited the excellent reputation of the Tribune Co.'s flagship newspaper, the Chicago Tribune.

"They didn't buy this paper to destroy it," he said. "I think there'll be lots of business as usual."

Tribune Co. executives said they don't expect layoffs at Times Mirror properties and had no current plans to reduce the foreign staffs of the various newspapers, some of which will overlap.

Instead, they said the sale would help the company remain profitable. Analysts say media companies that offer a wide range of outlets — including newspapers, magazines, the Internet, TV, cable and radio — will have the best chance of survival.

"This is about being better positioned to compete in a fragmenting media world," said Dennis J. FitzSimons, Tribune Co. executive vice president.