Michael Hirschorn wrote an excellent article in The Atlantic recently about the possible end of the New York Times as a printed daily paper. The New York Times, like many other businesses these days is in dire financial straits.
“Earnings reports released by the New York Times Company in October indicate that drastic measures will have to be taken over the next five months or the paper will default on some $400million in debt. With more than $1billion in debt already on the books, only $46million in cash reserves as of October, and no clear way to tap into the capital markets (the company’s debt was recently reduced to junk status), the paper’s future doesn’t look good.”
The Times Company, which owns the NY Times, has a lot of assets and can, conceivably save themselves. It is also possible that a buyer will come to their rescue. But is that merely postponing the inevitable?
“In December, the Fitch Ratings service, which monitors the health of media companies, predicted a widespread newspaper die-off: “Fitch believes more newspapers and newspaper groups will default, be shut down and be liquidated in 2009 and several cities could go without a daily print newspaper by 2010.”
I can’t imagine any of us don’t see the end of print journalism in the future. Perhaps the very near future. I don’t think that’s such a bad thing. I already read all my “papers” including the NY Times and The Washington Post online. I do find that I pick and choose more than I did when I read the print editions, but combined with all the blogs I read and all the articles to which fellow online “friends” point me, I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of what’s going on. Thanks to Twitter, I certainly knew about the Hudson River plane crash a lot quicker than if I had waited to read about it in the paper, or watch for it in on television. The way the news is reported has been changing for a long time and will continue to do so.
I read all my magazines online too. I admit, I don’t like it as much but I’m trying to adapt. I made the magazine switch primarily for environmental reasons but I think the magazine industry is also heading to an online-only format. Environmental issues aside, the internet represents the most up-to-date way to deliver content.
The Kindle, from which you can subscribe to numerous papers and magazines, is another example of an alternate delivery system, which is growing in popularity. What needs to change now is the way revenues are generated. According to Hirschorn’s article, twenty million people read the NY Times online as opposed to about one million who read the print edition. The one million actually pay to read the paper though, and are much more profitable than the online followers. The Huffington Post has figured out how to make it work. If they want to survive, the rest of the online papers need to figure it out as well.
I don’t see a future of no news. I see a future of more news. I see a future of no printed newspapers. If we mourn the loss of printed newspapers, I think we are mourning more the loss of the traditions the daily print papers represent, than the papers themselves.
How do you receive the majority of your news? Do you still subscribe to a daily print newspaper?
“Earnings reports released by the New York Times Company in October indicate that drastic measures will have to be taken over the next five months or the paper will default on some $400million in debt. With more than $1billion in debt already on the books, only $46million in cash reserves as of October, and no clear way to tap into the capital markets (the company’s debt was recently reduced to junk status), the paper’s future doesn’t look good.”
The Times Company, which owns the NY Times, has a lot of assets and can, conceivably save themselves. It is also possible that a buyer will come to their rescue. But is that merely postponing the inevitable?
“In December, the Fitch Ratings service, which monitors the health of media companies, predicted a widespread newspaper die-off: “Fitch believes more newspapers and newspaper groups will default, be shut down and be liquidated in 2009 and several cities could go without a daily print newspaper by 2010.”
I can’t imagine any of us don’t see the end of print journalism in the future. Perhaps the very near future. I don’t think that’s such a bad thing. I already read all my “papers” including the NY Times and The Washington Post online. I do find that I pick and choose more than I did when I read the print editions, but combined with all the blogs I read and all the articles to which fellow online “friends” point me, I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of what’s going on. Thanks to Twitter, I certainly knew about the Hudson River plane crash a lot quicker than if I had waited to read about it in the paper, or watch for it in on television. The way the news is reported has been changing for a long time and will continue to do so.
I read all my magazines online too. I admit, I don’t like it as much but I’m trying to adapt. I made the magazine switch primarily for environmental reasons but I think the magazine industry is also heading to an online-only format. Environmental issues aside, the internet represents the most up-to-date way to deliver content.
The Kindle, from which you can subscribe to numerous papers and magazines, is another example of an alternate delivery system, which is growing in popularity. What needs to change now is the way revenues are generated. According to Hirschorn’s article, twenty million people read the NY Times online as opposed to about one million who read the print edition. The one million actually pay to read the paper though, and are much more profitable than the online followers. The Huffington Post has figured out how to make it work. If they want to survive, the rest of the online papers need to figure it out as well.
I don’t see a future of no news. I see a future of more news. I see a future of no printed newspapers. If we mourn the loss of printed newspapers, I think we are mourning more the loss of the traditions the daily print papers represent, than the papers themselves.
How do you receive the majority of your news? Do you still subscribe to a daily print newspaper?
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4 comments:
Nice read @SimplyForties I do most of my reading online as well, but still enjoy hard copies every now and then - stockmanmarc via Twitter
I hafta admit, I get more and more of my information online.
However, print media serve several important purposes in my life. First, the NY Times offers a great deal of reflective writing that I do not and would not ever read in its online incarnation. When I'm in front of my computer, I'm working; I look at the news to give myself a break from some very boring stuff, and that break does not provide enough time to read thought pieces.
Second, the Times represents a kind of middlebrow nonfiction literature for me. I would be very, very sad to lose the Sunday Times magazine. It is, in fact, the main reason I subscribe to that newspaper. Because of the Times magazine, i MAKE time in my weekend to sit down, relax, and read every part of it over coffee. This forces me to sit still and unwind over something pleasurable for an hour or two, longer than at any other time of the week. Far more important than providing a relaxing respite, it gives me practice at the long-lost art of sustained focus on one thing.
All the rest of my intellectual energy, all the other hours of the week, is engaged in gestalt activity. I rarely focus on any one thing more than five or ten minutes at a time. And I don't think that's good. The Times magazine offers what is now my ONLY opportunity to sit quietly and think about one activity for an hour or more.
When that's gone, there won't be much to take its place.
The NY Review of Books, while often interesting, is deep and complex, providing a challenge more akin to a scholarly paper than an enjoyable read. Thanks, but I read enough scholarly papers in my work... Today while picking up the house I found three NY Reviews that I'd set aside without finishing: one on page 28, one on page 15, and one on page 79? Will I ever finish reading these issues? Not likely.
Harper's is profoundly dark. I can't get through an issue without becoming so distressed that I have to stop. Even the current issue: its editor allows as to how we should be happy a president with a measurable IQ has finally been elected, but then goes on to enumerate all the ways in which this is a fluke and all the ways in which our country is dominated by ignorance and joy in ignorance.
The Atlantic...okay, pretty good, but still not engaging enough to keep me reading all the way through an article or a feature without dropping it to tend to some other task. Scientific American, ditto.
You can't read an Internet site over your bacon and eggs, at least not comfortably. You need a newspaper to do that. You need newspapers for a lot of other more important things, too.
Yeah, I have to agree with F about M...I would be hard pressed to give up my Sunday NYT. The computer is about sound bites in my book. It's hard for me to focus my attention on the computer to read something for longer than a minute or two. I need the tactile feel of a newspaper to sit down and focus and think about what I"m reading.
I know that it's all headed online but I'm not crazy about it. Same reason I want a book not a Kindle to read. It's just not the same.
There is nothing like taking a leisurely hour or hour and a half to sit down with my housemate or significant other and chat over what we're reading in the paper as we sip out coffee.
I agree with you Funny & WomenBloom, reading online is not the same. The main reason I started reading my papers online is that where I live, having the papers delivered daily is not an option, so I adapted.
I have a friend with a Kindle and I am very impressed with their paper and ink technology and the design of the unit. Again, it's not the same but it's better then reading on the computer. I think that sort of technology will continue to improve. I don't have a Kindle because of the price but I suspect, like all new technology, the price will come down and I'll probably get one.
Just the simple fact of not being able to start at the beginning and read until the end, with papers and magazines, makes my online reading experience completely different. I know I miss a lot.
It does seem inevitable to me, I just hope that someone can come up with a reasonable alternative.
Thank you for your good comments!
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