Legal Research

The Christian Science Monitor Puts Its Faith In The Web

The Christian Science Monitor will become the first U.S. national newspaper to go Web-only, reports the NY Times today.  The changeover will occur in April 2009.  From the article:

“John Yemma, The Monitor’s editor, said that moving to the Web only will mean it can keep its eight foreign bureaus open while still lowering costs.  ‘We have the luxury — the opportunity — of making a leap that most newspapers will have to make in the next five years,’ Mr. Yemma said.”

IMHO the online-only solution sure beats the alternative: laying off most of the real journalists and relying on blog filler.  That’s why I don’t go to Philly.com anymore.  (I do have Sunday delivery of the Inquirer.  For now.  If they telemarket me one more time, I’m gone.)  I rely on The Monitor, NY Times (even though they’re “running on fumes“), and Wall Street Journal (which I’d pay for even if Jenkins didn’t have a sub) for my serious news.

Now The Monitor will probably be able to pull this off because they’re subsidized by the Christian Scientist Church, currently to the tune of $12 million a year.  But they also feel that a Web-only format supported by online ads can be a “sustainable model” if they can increase their monthly pageviews from 3 million to 30 million in the next 5 years.

Full post as published by Jenkins Webblits on October 28, 2008 (boomark / email).