By JOAN JACOBSON
What in the world will the new editor of the tattered Baltimore Sun say when he speaks Thursday at Hopkins’ Shriver Hall about the sad state of journalistic affairs at our city’s flagship newspaper?

The title of his speech (this is not a joke) is “News and Content First: Protecting What Matters Most.”

Monty Cook has been editor for a little more than three months and has dutifully overseen the steady bloodletting at the ever-shrinking Sun, including the closing of all suburban bureaus, thus requiring reporters to work out of their cars or from downtown desks, miles from the news they cover.

And yet, many of his editors and reporters (who have far more journalism experience than he does) are still cranking out a handful of journalistic gems, despite the fact that the newsroom looks more like a furniture showroom than a place where serious news is reported.

Unlike his predecessors over the last 172 years, Cook is not a newsman. He is a design guy, who oversaw the latest redesign of the paper that led readers to cancel their subscriptions in droves. Maybe his lack of news sense makes it easier to carry out the orders of the hatchet men above him. (Though, you’d think it would be painful for a graphics guy to put up with the jarringly different typeface of the Chicago-produced Nation & World page that squats in the middle of the Sun’s main section these days.)

Inquiring minds want to know….
If you go to hear Cook’s speech, here are a few questions you might want to ask about the state of journalism at 501 N. Calvert Street:

* How will you protect ‘news and content first’ when you are about to announce another major layoff in the already-depleted newsroom?

* What jobs are left that you believe are dispensable?

* How much money has the Sun siphoned from its coffers to produce ‘b,’ the free daily aimed at 20-something readers?

(Cook personally designed b, which is reportedly losing money due to a lack of advertising and readers. A year ago, its staff was moved into the Sun’s Towson bureau, forcing out Sun reporters and editors. Today ‘b’ has virtually no original content. Today’s paper has one ‘b’ sports column, but the other ‘news’ is ripped from AP and the Sun. And there are alarmingly few ads among the 23 tabloid pages. Some pages are wasted actually reprinting the ‘b’ front pages from the past year.)

* How many subscribers have cancelled their home delivery since the Sun’s latest redesign?

* Is it true that the daily features section is being cut back to just a couple of days a week?

* How much longer do you think the paper will last?

Postscript:
Maybe former Sun columnist Roger Simon jinxed newspapers by failing to knock on wood when he predicted confidently that “newspapers will still be around 150 years from today.”

Cook will be speaking from 4 pm to 5:30 pm at the Shriver Hall Board Room.