The Atlantic Monthly on the future of the NY Times

The Big Ragu · Jan 13, 2009

I just read this:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200901/new-york-times

It didn't say a ton I haven't seen talked about on here. I am mostly interested in what others think. But a few graphs popped out at me.

It predicts that a lot of cities won't have a print newspaper by this year or 2010. And it predicts a digital-only strategy eventually for the Times, and then adds this:

The conundrum, of course, is that those 1 million print readers, who pay actual cash money for the privilege of consuming the paper, and who are worth about five figures a page to advertisers, are far more profitable than the 20 million unique Web users, who don’t and aren’t. Common estimates suggest that a Web-driven product could support only 20 percent of the current staff; such a drop in personnel would (in the short run) devastate The Times’ news-gathering capacity.
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That seems like the major problem for newspapers, in general, even the ones that were quicker than the Times to embrace the internet.

This graph also made me cringe a little, and I am sure it will hit traditionalists even harder than it did me:

In this scenario, nytimes.com would begin to resemble a bigger, better, and less partisan version of the Huffington Post, which, until someone smarter or more deep-pocketed comes along, is the prototype for the future of journalism: a healthy dose of aggregation, a wide range of contributors, and a growing offering of original reporting. This combination has allowed the HuffPo to digest the news that matters most to its readers at minimal cost, while it focuses resources in the highest-impact areas. What the HuffPo does not have, at least not yet, is a roster of contributors who can set agendas, conduct in-depth investigations, or break high-level news. But the post-print Times still would.
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JayFarrar · Jan 14, 2009

Poynter posted a response from the Times

http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=13765

With regard to the specific point made about the demise of the print edition of The Times in May, it may make for a good a story but it is poor analysis. We have 830,000 loyal readers who have subscribed to The New York Times for more than two years, a number that has increased by about a third over the past decade. They like reading the print edition and pay a substantial amount of money to do so. That's not to say they don't visit NYTimes.com or read our journalism on their mobile devices. They do. But they would be unhappy if they couldn’t pick up a print copy. And since it's profitable for us to print these copies, we will continue to do so.
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I cringed, and then shuddered at the thought of the Huffington Post being called the future of journalism. I don't understand why so many supposedly smart people are hooked on Huffington.
One of the Chicago alt-weeklies did a big long thing on how the Chicago version of Huffington Post was simply ripping off copy. Just copying and pasting and running the reviews like they were the ones who wrote them.
Try that in print, and you get laughed off out of the room. Much like the Texas weekly did. Do that on the interweb, and you get called a genius.

Fredrick · Jan 14, 2009

That was a good response by the Times. The only reason people will abandon the print product of the Times is the same reason they abandon other print papers. If the staffs continue to get slashed as well as the page counts and the product continues to weaken of course readers will abandon the print edition.

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The Atlantic Monthly on the future of the NY Times

The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

JayFarrar Well-Known Member

Fredrick Well-Known Member

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The Atlantic Monthly on the future of the NY Times

The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

JayFarrar Well-Known Member

Fredrick Well-Known Member

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