The Times Dies

For so long, mine was the lonely and vilified voice saying that the New York Times was doomed--vilified most hotly by people at the Times. But the end of the New York Times has now become a conventional forecast, taken up most recently by my friend Michael Hirschorn in the Atlantic.

I don't know of anyone now--at least anyone who isn't employed by the Times--who believes that the business, as currently organized and managed, can survive. If it had some chance of ignominiously limping along before the recession, that's gone with its entire advertising base in freefall.

Hirschorn's concise, by-the-numbers analysis is more precise: The Times could go out of business in May. That's when $400 million of the Times' $1 billion in debt comes due--and it only has $46 million in the bank.

Hirschorn remains, however, a Times believer, or a believer in the thing the Times represents--some DNA that he sees being preserved and having a future in the new world.

Continue reading at newser.com

Comments

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

Don't forget to thank Judith Miller.

[durant]

IWhy don't we stick to the topic of the thread? The question isn't whether the NY Times should survive, or whether blogs and online news sites are worthy replacements--it's whether the NY Times will figure out a way to pay off its debt and stay in business. Will it be able to sell the Red Sox, About.com, and whatever assets it may have left? And if does manage to survive its current problems and focus on its core business, will it be able to run a profitable news operation (whether in print, on the Web, or both)?

[TheEmptinessOfTruthiness]

You mean why don't we be objective instead of projecting our wishes on the outcome?

Why should we? The NYT doesn't.

[Senzasord]

Why woud I want to subscribe to a paper that puts Bill Krystol out front as a columnist? They have no credibility anymore. Forget about it!

[OnReflection]

The New York Times has not been in recent history a NY paper, NY City has changed so much over the years yet the paper still reads as if we are in the seventies, and any one who lives in NYC knows exactly what I Mean!

I won’t miss it!!

[devadasi]

I live in NYC and I have know idea what you mean. I can't imagine a world without the New York Times; it would be a tragedy if they were to shut down.

[TheEmptinessOfTruthiness]

Ummm, imagine a world where Iraq was not invaded, GWB was a one-term president, and America was not slipping into fascism.

I like it!!

[Fein]

NYT was a bulwark against the Right Wing extremism of the Bush years.

I suppose I should subscribe to them just to reward them for that.

But too much of their journalism simply goes along with the misinformation flow that American media
has become.

[TheEmptinessOfTruthiness]

If by 'bulwark' you mean something like the levee that saved New Orleans.

[Cheesemelt]

If the NYT fails, warts and all, it will be a loss of epic scale. Unless you're a regular reader of the print edition, you cannot imagine the overall negative impact on not just news, but culture and the arts.

The NYT brand is worth billions, so this article seems rather premature, but the shocking drop in print advertising over the last few months has been like watching a friend die of an especially virulent cancer.

The Sunday NYT print edition is such a stunningly complex and rich resource that it's hard to imagine losing that to Murdoch, the WSJ and the NY Post.

Hopefully, the brand will recover and reconstitute when this recession ends -- sometime ~5 years from now.

[Dameocrat]

Maybe the unemployed reporters can start an online publication. Donation supported.

[Cheesemelt]

A great business model.

(End sarcasm mode)

[wiseguy77]

Mr. Wolf just got a bad review in the Times for his book on Rupert Murdoch, so some of this seems pure payback. Still, the Times has failed us again and again under Pinch Sultzberger, the runup to the Iraq war is the most stunning example, and what is needed now is a change at the top, not the end of America's last great newspaper. They could cut back on many of the style-home-sections and go back to reporting the news . Too often the paper has its head in the sand when it features two thousand dollar suits and ten thousand dollar sofas - and it is an absolute failure as a guide to film and theatre - celebrating the obscure and castigating the entertaining. The paper's attempt to be hip is often ludicrous, but all that does not matter. Without the Times we would be without the best reporting, and bloggers would not get the news they then interpret. Live on old Gray Lady. But lose some weight - and William Kristol. For that last choice alone you must have lost a thousand readers.

[Dameocrat]

The success of the blogs is suggestive of a terrible hunger for good newspapers that none of the newspapers are willing to fill, because they are owned by people who weren't. Namely corporate America.. I just think the word liberal is a code for "good citizen." The people who voted republican were people who were uninformed and proud of it. Why did the newspapers ever think such people would become loyal customers?

[hmargret]

Totally right on!
The newsprint industry refused to change. I work in it.....they held on to the 20% profit margin as if it was their salvation. in the end, they lost relevancy. by the way, they treat the ad reps like dirt, not soil. all the sales goals were increased yearly despite changing times and a rep made less.

[MarvBitesBack]

I guess the Times is damned if they do and damned if they don't. It's op-ed section becomes even more incredibly biased to the left? Readers flee. Add Bill Kristol to get at least a token hint of balance? Readers to flee. Judith Miller reports on the US intelligence take on Iraqi nuclear program? The Times is a mouthpiece of the W admin! Readers flee. Run a front page article implying John McCain was having an affair with lobbyists? Readers flee. The Times is simply devolving into a liberal blog with the occassional real news story (generally tilted left). Good riddance.

[LeonBNJ]

Every day as I arrive in NY City via the Port Authority Bus Terminal, I see the new building that is the home of the New York Times. To me that is the symbol of their hubris that is now hurting them.
I gave up reading the Times in late 2001 as it seemed to lose quality, showed excessive bias on some issues, became more difficult for me to get on my way to my commuter bus and finally the price on the Sunday and weekday editions went up again. I found with access at home and at work to the internet as well as the expansion of cable news, more sources of news that were much more timely and with a range of opinions.
I don't want the collaspe of the Times or any other newspaper in print to occur, but let us not forget that what we consider newspapers have only been around since the mid to late 1800's or about 150-160 years and especially after the development of electric motor powered high speed printing. Times change both the newspaper and the calander.

[chrisfromky]

It makes me sick to my stomach to see so many of these newspapers going out of business. What is wrong with all of you people on here saying this is a good thing?!?! You need the news to stay informed and I don't think the internet should be the only way one can get it. Do you not realize how many people do not have the internet? I remember when I was a kid it use to be everyone on the block received a newspaper, now days its me and the 4 old ladies on the street. I receive the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and my local paper the Cincinnati Enquirer. There is something about being able to sit down with something actually in your hands and reading it. The news to a great extent, and the freedom of it, is a great part of what makes this a great country to live in. So you don't agree with something they covered or didn't cover, you didn't agree with an op ed, get over yourself. Not everyone is going to do exactly what you want all the time, no matter how big an outrage you find something to be. Also keep in mind the importance of local papers. They cover many stories and expose many things that the national news will never have on their radar.

[Dameocrat]

We need good newspapers to stay informed, and since the 80s when the newspapers bought into the infotainment ethic they haven't been consistently good. The blogs became popular because they could cherry pick the best stuff.

If the NYTimes and other would go back to what they were, I think their fortunes would turn even in this terrible time.

[scottarino]

It has been written for the past 15 years that newspapers are on their way out. Newsprint keeps skyrocketing and other costs keep increasing past what advertisers will be willing to pay to keep it in the black. The newspaper's internet ads are not generating enough revenue (yet) to maintain their plethora of writers and photographers and brick and mortar overhead. This is happening to ALL newpapers in this country. Associated Press access costs a king's ransom per month for all these papers. It will eventually make the move to nearly 100% internet news service. It has to. But the transition is going to be painful and tough. Right now papers are dropping the dimensions of their papers to save on newsprint costs, many are switching to a tabloid size product to save even more, not to mention the layoffs and entry-level only hiring positions across the board. Add to this the American public is just getting their fangs wet at the notion of ONLY reading opinion-based news and somehow, they are accepting of this as real news. It's already happened for television news media outlets, and magazines, newspapers are next to fall to the increasing wave of " I only want to read what I already suspect " news readers. But this is typical of American culture in the 21st century. Shallow, narrow-minded, and extremely hard-headed.

[amicus1991]

Good riddance. The Times gets what it deserves for its blatantly bias left wing reporting.

[Bluedanube]

It's not "left wing" reporting it's promotion of the ruling elites reporting.

[mountainweb]

Very bad decisions made by highly paid management who got rewarded for failure. You get what you pay for! Pay someone regardless of success or failure and they will always take the easy road. Numerous newspapers around the country are in the same fix or headed that way. Between the 200+ channels of news on TV/Cable and the internet and they are doomed in their present form.

[AmandaRuth]

I can' t seem to find any labor news in the Times. Where are the columns by union leaders? Wish i could say I was sorry about what is happening to the newspaper industry as a whole, but you reap what you sow.

[lechatnoir]

As many others have pointed out, the NYT is one of the main enablers of pretty much everything that is urgently wrong right now. For example, if they had done their job properly, they would have heeded the many voices who warned about so-calles WMD's being used to make the case for an illegal war. They have a lot of blood on their hands as a result.

Let this be an example of how you fast lose your role as a newspaper when you turn to propaganda and fluff pieces, thus flushing your credibility down the can. It was quite a fall for what was once known as 'the newspaper of record', although thinking back on it, it was probably a load of manure back then too.

[robertlockwoodmills]

What an irony! The Times refused to acknowledge two stolen presidential elections and refused to investigate 9/11. They also believed Judy Miller's bullshit about Iraq. They failed to anticipate Wall Street's collapse, albeit they pride themselves on business acument. All along they played it "safe" by aligning with the status quo, keeping their "access" to the Bush administration and protecting their corporate stockholders and advertisers.

Now the advertisers and corporate friends they protected are turning against them. Who was it who said, "Don't worry about your enemies. It's your friends you have to worry about."?????