End Times -Can America's paper of record survive the death of newsprint? Can journalism? The Atlantic VIRTUALLY ALL THE predictions about the death of old media have assumed a comfortingly long time frame for the end of print... ...The thinking goes that the existing brands--The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal--will be the ones making that transition, challenged but still dominant as sources of original reporting. ...what if The New York Times goes out of business--like, this May? It's certainly plausible. 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 thinking goes that the existing brands--The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal--will be the ones making that transition, challenged but still dominant as sources of original reporting.
...what if The New York Times goes out of business--like, this May?
It's certainly plausible. 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.
Frank Delaney ~ Ireland
does it really make any sense for the more literate news media to be so right wing that their op ed pages descend into the incoherent ranting that constitutes thought on the conservative side ? they should leave that for middle brow tabloids. After all, if idiocy is all you want, there's plenty of that on Fox.
However, your query is probably best described as "Is there a profitable model for an upmarket newspaper ?" To which I'd have to answer, I don't know, but I can't believe that the stodgy reporting in the NYT represents it. keep to the Fen Causeway
The NYT going down really doesn't bother me much. It's sad, sure, but it's sad that it's become such a joke of a paper.
The sourcing is weak on good days. The campaign coverage this year was some of the worst in the business. Doesn't have enough news for Democrats. Doesn't have enough pictures for Republicans. There are only three good columnists (Krugman, Bob Herbert, Frank Rich), while there are several terrible ones (MoDo, the Mustache of Understanding, Gail Collins, David Brooks, Bill Kristol, William Kristof).
Krugman could probably land at the WSJ with Thomas Frank. Herbert could probably go to Newsweek or TIME. Rich needs comedy, so I'm thinking send him to Vanity Fair and put his office next to Christopher Hitchens.
The NYT's doomed. And it's not without good reason. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
The NYT has for ten years punted on this "internet" thing and there's little reason to believe they'll figure out what to do now. Fortunately the Huffington Post is not their replacement.
Which is increasingly the only thing holding the NYT together. When I first started reading the op-eds I thought most of them were so wretched that I almost emailed the editors asking if they wanted someone to join the team.
I didn't realise that you had to be Very Very Serious before you were allowed to say spectacularly stupid, wrong things on the record in public - I thought anyone could do it.
Also, this kind of nonsense:
The Minimalist - The Latest Must-Haves for the Pantry - NYTimes.com
PERHAPS, like me, you have this romantic notion of shopping daily -- maybe even a mental vision of yourself making the rounds, wicker basket in hand, of your little Shropshire or Provençal or Tuscan village. The reality, of course, is that few of us provision our kitchens or cook exclusively with ultra-fresh ingredients, especially in winter, when there simply are no ultra-fresh ingredients.
has more than a whiff of Bastille Day about it, considering.
