In light of Heath Haussamen’s column yesterday about the plight of the newspaper industry, I read with interest a memo posted by Politico.com on the same day. The memo by Washington Post Publisher Katherine Weymouth to the newspaper’s staff described a strategic review of the company’s operations and the need for a quick and decisive internal realignment due the quickly evolving market for news.

Weymouth said that the Post’s online business is steadily growing, but that it isn’t large enough to offset the large decline in print revenue. For this reason, the company conducted a comprehensive review of its operations in order to develop more clarity about how to move forward in a rapidly changing business environment:

The purpose of our strategy review was not to answer with great precision how to “fix” our business model overnight — there is no quick, easy response to the sea changes already disrupting our industry before the financial meltdown of this Fall. Our goal was to propose an integrated set of choices that will allow us to preserve our commitment to journalistic excellence while also positioning the company to generate strong financial returns over the long run.

Wrapping up her comments, Weymouth said the industry was undergoing a “great change” and that the company’s cost structure needed “realignment” because “the decline in our revenue base, particularly in classified advertising, requires decisive action.”

Sounds like Weymouth doesn’t have an answer to the big question of how newspapers can replace advertising revenue either. But it’s clearly on everybody’s mind.