Below The Beltway

The beginning probably started long ago, but when you have the publisher of The New York Times acknowledging that there may not be a print version of his paper five years from now, you know the end has truly started:

Given the constant erosion of the printed press, do you see the New York Times still being printed in five years?

“I really don’t know whether we’ll be printing the Times in five years, and you know what? I don’t care either,” he says.

Sulzberger is focusing on how to best manage the transition from print to Internet.

“The Internet is a wonderful place to be, and we’re leading there,” he points out.

The Times, in fact, has doubled its online readership to 1.5 million a day to go along with its 1.1 million subscribers for the print edition.

Sulzberger says the New York Times is on a journey that will conclude the day the company decides to stop printing the paper. That will mark the end of the transition. It’s a long journey, and there will be bumps on the road, says the man at the driving wheel, but he doesn’t see a black void ahead.

The Times began publishing 156 years ago. Whether you like it or not, it is the pre-eminent national paper in the United States today and a leader in the newspaper industry. If and when the day comes that it stops printing a paper edition, that event will hit the newspaper industry like a tornado.

Sulzberger, though, seems to recognize that the future for news “papers” is on the web:

[W]hat papers lose, Web sites gain. Media groups can develop their online advertising business, he explains. Also, because Internet advertising doesn’t involve paper, ink and distribution, companies can earn the same amount of money even if it receives less advertising revenue.

Really? What about the costs of development and computerization?

“These costs aren’t anywhere near what print costs,” Sulzberger says. “The last time we made a major investment in print, it cost no less than $1 billion. Site development costs don’t grow to that magnitude.”

It’s taken some time, and I think it’s been fairly clearly the Times Select idea has been a bust, but the New York Times seems to be among the few newspapers (how much longer will that word make sense ?) that seems to recognize where their future lies.

On a personal level, though, Sulzberger’s comments remind me of how little I rely upon print newspapers for information anymore. There was a time 15 years ago when I would read two newspapers a day, if not three if time permitted. Now, while we still subscribe to The Washington Post on a daily basis, I get my news from a large number of newspaper websites —- including The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Washington Times, The LA Times, and even The Cleveland Plain Dealer —- most of which I access through RSS feeds. Kellie and I have had the “why are we still subscribing to the Post” conversation several times, and I have a feeling we’ll at least be cutting back to Sundays sometime in the near future.