PressEthic

Beginning with the new year, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal will both trim their broadsheets to a twelve-inch width - from what I have been told. This represents about a ten percent reduction in content for The Journal and a similar reduction for The Times. Both are going to add pages to offset the loss. The decisions were not editorial-based, but economically-based, and there are many who will point to declining circulation, and this most recent reduction in paper size, as proof that paper-based newspapers are dying on the vine. It's been said before.

Radio was a breakthrough technology, as was television, and with each technological advance there accompanied a wave of enthusiasts who declared that old media is, or would become, dead. Anthony DePalma, staff writer at The New York Times, recently stated he heard this argument when he began his career. For that reason he started in television, but eventually made his way to newsprint.

Undoubtedly, the internet provided the means to deliver news in a mulitfaceted package - audio, video and print - at astounding speed to a world-wide audience at a fraction of the cost of traditional media. There are also aspects of contribution and interaction that the web uniquely provides. But traditional media, by definition, has changed over the years. The internet may very well share this moniker with the older modes of information deliverence at some point.

I can comprehend a time when the daily paper will be more expensive, and less ubiquitous, but still available in some kind of mobile format. Paper, that tactile connection with the days' news, will have a different feel and format. I don't know yet what it will be, or how it will come into the hands of people riding the subway or riding on trains, but I am sure it will always be there.