TV's The Profit supports local newspapers as a great source for business information and knowledge

I love reality TV. Since the very first season of Survivor, I've been a huge fan. Watching how the contestants interact and strategize is fun to watch and helpful. You can watch how people react to difficult people and difficult situations, and you can adapt that to your own personal life.

But my favorite reality show is about a different kind of survival. Trying to keep small businesses afloat and in fact prosper is the focus of CNBC's The Profit. Starring Marcus Lemonis, the show is about Lemonis investing in small businesses around the country and helping to guide them into black ink.

The basic belief of Lemonis, who made his biggest mark as the CEO of Camping World, is very simple. Successful businesses focus on their people, the process and their product. Think about it for a moment; that totally makes sense. If you boil things down the basics in your business, any business, it comes down to people, processes and products. I've personally used this approach on many occasions to work on my strategy for business improvement.

I'm such a fan of Lemonis, that I've inquired with him about any books he's written because I want to learn more from him. Turns out, the answer was right under my nose everyday.

In an article on CNBC, Lemonis declared that he didn't read business books. He finds them  to be outdated. But he is a big reader, and uses that gathered intelligence to help him make decisions. But his reference book isn't a book at all. Turns out, Marcus relies on the daily newspaper.

"If you're going to make business decisions and you're going to make them today, you might as well have the most recent information," Lemonis tells CNBC. "Whether that's The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times or your local paper, I think in order to get in touch with real-time information, you've got to study real-time data."

Lemonis learns a lot from the newspaper industry. And I believe the newspaper industry could learn a lot from him too, using his approach to streamline and relaunch the local newspaper.