Print obsolete?
You’ve probably seen this already, but the Christian Science Monitor will start dropping its printed version starting next year:
"In 2009, the Monitor will become the first nationally circulated newspaper to replace its daily print edition with its website; the 100 year-old news organization will also offer subscribers weekly print and daily e-mail editions."
As Editor John Yemma says in a video accompanying the article, "The print model of journalism is broken." While Gutenburg may be rolling in his grave, the Monitor will try to hang on to their print audience on weekends, while switching the rest of the paper over to daily emails and online news only.
Is this a harbinger for the downfall of print media as we know it?
Monitor Managing Publisher Jonathan Wells, doesn’t think it’s time to entirely abandon print products. If anything, I think this gravitation to more of an online journalism will have to be watched closely to make sure the same quality of reporting is maintained. It seems that this move will shift coverage more to a portal model, and hopefully that doesn’t diminish opportunities for companies to get their messages out there effectively and usefully.
Readers, do any of you believe that print journalism will still exist in ten years?
**UPDATE 1 (10/30)**
NYT: Mourning Old Media’s Decline
Great quote and article from David Carr: "Clearly, the sky is falling. The question now is how many people will be left to cover it." Click through for over 200 comments.
Comments (1)
October 31st, 2008 at 5:08 pm Posted by Alison
I’m interested to see what happens with this. If the Monitor can maintain their quality of reporting (or perhaps increase it with savings from ditching the print) I think that will be a good thing for the newspaper publishing world to see.
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