Maybe not exactly on topic, but I thought we should be part of the chronicle of the end of an era. The Monitor is 100 years old and is now the first paper to embrace a primarily-internet strategy. I find this fascinating. My daughter, who is 28, has a Masters in Journalism from Medill and has just made the masthead of Wired as a Correspondent. Despite being a professional journalist she, and all of her peers whom I have met, consider print newspapers to be irrelevant. We are seeing this attitude reflect, of course, in the increasing problems all newspapers have with circulation. If I remember correctly, the publisher of the New York Times has stated publicly that he didn’t care whether the print edition of the Times continues or not.
Here is an excerpt from “A note to our subscribers from the managing publisher”: We recently announced, as covered in today’s paper, that in April 2009 the daily print edition of The Christian Science Monitor will shift to a 24/7 daily Web publication. This will be combined with the launch of an attractive new weekly print publication that looks behind the headlines and helps readers understand global issues. Also we will launch a new daily e-news edition, delivered by e-mail.
I was a subscriber to the paper for a number of years. It was a nice change from the “standard fare” of other newspapers.
We probably check our email more frequently than the mailbox. Transitions from monthly to weekly to daily and then hourly news are also associated with different production and delivery modes. Actually news on a phone is instantaneous.
But these observations are not very relevant to the future role of print. That will only become apparent news following publication of print books concerning transitions in news reporting.