Earlier today, we wrote about job cuts at the Palm Beach Post, the last of the major Florida papers to go that route. The announcement prompted a state-of-the-industry memo from Cox Newspapers’ president Sandy Schwartz to publishers at the other papers owned by privately held Cox Enterprises. Posted by Romenesko, the memo includes a moment of truth that probably only could come from a private company these days:

“We have no expectations newspapers will return to the highly profitable days of the past; we do believe, however, we can publish newspapers that continue to make us proud and produce positive earnings.”

(And, yes, we do know some would dispute even the positive earnings part.)

The memo, which also stressed multimedia and accelerating digital strategy, went to Atlanta Journal-Constitution staffers with a message from publisher John Mellott. From that: “Our AJC 2.0 efforts are in final prototyping stages. Our digital traffic continues to climb, and this week, we begin overarching digital strategy work.” But more “cost reductions” are on the way.