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A sign of the times: After 100 years of news in print, the Christian Science Monitor has decided to scrap the daily print issue of its newspaper. They’ll focus on making their site a rolling news service and printing a weekend magazine. The change is expected to cut annual costs by millions of dollars for the money-losing newspaper.
They are the first major national newspaper in the US to take this decision. And they don’t expect to be the last. The Monitor’s management said the transition was unavoidable — not only for the Monitor but possibly for the entire newspaper industry. It comes at a time of fundamental transition in news publishing and turns the page on a remarkable chapter in American journalism.
Christian Science Publishing, the owner of the Monitor, argues that the switch to web-only journalism is in keeping with Eddy’s edict that the paper must “keep abreast of the times” and that the cost savings will help it maintain its journalistic standards.
This will be a major change for the Monitor as the bulk of their revenue currently comes from subscriptions. The move to online will mean they have to go to the ad revenue model. Subscribers can still get the weekly print edition and a daily email newsletter.
The number of print newspapers on your media relations list might get shorter in 2009. Are you ready to service online journalists?
