Your conclusion (that there will be blood) reminds me of the old riddle: what is black and white and ‘red’ all over? The figures are daunting but not yet decisive. Having a strong online presence will probably help a great deal, as will soliciting and acting on readers’ ideas about how to improve both the print and digital formats — as you have recently done.

In a short essay on the history of American general-interest magazines, Neil Postman wrote: “we may draw a small measure of optimism from the fact that there is no result of media change so inevitable that we can speak with certainty of the future. The study of media history reveals — time and again — that there are always surprises in store.”

Stan: according to the Daily Show, what’s black and white and red all over is the New York Times’s balance sheet. If you’re saying, as I think you are, that we are in a period where absolutely nobody knows how things will work out, then I agree. That in itself is a nightmarish scenario for those trying to plan long-term strategy against a background of plummeting revenues. But personally I’ve always appreciated William Goldman’s dictum (about movies) that ‘nobody knows anything’. I believe in what we do as journalists. I believe there will continue to be a need for it. I believe that there will still be a market to pay for it. I also believe it will change fundamentally over the next decade. Part of that change will involve ‘blood’: the extinguishing of longstanding media institutions and of many cherished beliefs about how journalism works.

Too rarely do journalists work hard enough for their reader’s loyalty. Reciting their subject’s commentary without doing any investigation themselves can get more then a little dull.

NYT still has many moments of brillance. Here in Chicago the Tribune has simple gone to hell it seems.

True to the old dictum “If it bleeds it leads”! I think what we are seeing here are changing habits – not so much economic habits (the old argument about a cup of coffee costing more than a newspaper still stands) but more time habits. Users/readers/consumers have been re-adjusting their day and how they use it, for some time now,and digital media in all its forms has been helping them to make these diary changes – they still want well packaged, good content but obviously in different forms.
For the important ecomomic/marketing groups (15-50 year olds) newspapers have fallen off the shopping and ‘To do’ lists for some time.
This is why I think the French initiative of free newspapers for youth is flawed and typically interventionist. Print newspapers don’t interest enough young people often enough to merit economic value.
So hence we are back to protection of IP and enforcement of copyright – these might be a key way of protecting the ‘newspaper’ business. Good,and unique content,is still key.
‘The Irish Times’,for example,is what you would call a ‘lighthouse’ brand with international recognition and I would hope a very long life ahead of it.
Would it really matter if ,one day, one of Rupert Murdoch’s men came along and said “Look,we are launching something similar to the BSkyB platform,so do you want to be on it? We are going to charge households in the same way that we charge for pay TV,and consumers get to choose in what form they consume the content whether it’s from ‘The Irish Times’ or ‘The Sunday Times’ .It just goes on the monthly bill.”
(No vested interest here,by the way!)

dont worry e-readers will change your fortunes. you just have to decide which ship to bundle yourself in with. I believe you’ve gone for the Kindle?

I would have waited to see what the big tech boys had to show first. affordable pay per view is going to be a goldmine on these machines.