Both the Tribune and the LA Times are well-respected, even storied, newspapers, and household names in their respective cities, the second and third largest markets in the country. The Tribune dates to 1847 and survived the Great Chicago Fire and the Great Depression. It may not, however, be able to survive the Internet.
The effect on the news industry, meanwhile, from print to broadcast and online journalism, has been a bit like picking up an ant farm and giving it a good, vigorous shake. Sam Zell, the chairman and chief executive of the Tribune Company, has a reputation in media circles as a bit of a bulldog -- an internal memo at the LA Times once described him as "a force of nature" -- and the fact that he, of all people, was forced to such extreme measures as Chapter 11 seems to have left many feeling unsettled. (Not that the element of Schadenfreude is totally absent from the public reaction. As of this writing, some wag had added a new section to Zell's Wikipedia page: "See Also, epic fail.")
Once more into the Web
The Tribune Company's financial problems are not unique in the industry, and its bankruptcy might well be the first in a long series. Everywhere you look, ad revenue is down and papers are cutting staff in double-digit percentages. Many are planning to abandon print for the Web, even if they haven't quite figured out how to turn a profit online.
The Christian Science Monitor, as I noted not long ago, is the most prominent paper to have announced firm plans to do this. The Monitor will publish a print version once a week, beginning in early 2009, and maintain a full-featured news site to be updated constantly. It will also issue a daily e-mail edition. Smaller papers and magazines are following suit: The Capital Times, of Madison, Wisconsin, switched over to online-only status at the end of April, and the tech magazine InfoWorld has been Web-based since the spring.
As if in recognition of the future of the news industry, the Pulitzer Prize Board recently announced that it will now consider Web-only news sites for its journalism award. Petitions have circulated since the 1990s to open up the category to online publications, but until now, only websites affiliated with print newspapers were considered.
Turning the page
If and when printed newspapers and magazines do go the way of the gramophone, it will be sad but not necessarily worth weeping about. The amount of paper wasted every day in unsold publications should be a source of chagrin to anyone who cares about the environment. Also, reading The New York Times at home on a Sunday has its charms, but wrestling with the pages on a crowded subway train is no picnic. In a cramped world, the Kindle becomes a very attractive option. (Admittedly, and like anyone in any media that reports in any form on this subject, I can't claim to have no stake in the question of print vs. online news. Still, I don't think I'm making huge leaps here.)
The biggest questions about shifting an industry online all involve money. Websites aren't free to produce, and generating revenue from online advertising is still something of a crapshoot. There are few proven models, in part because the technology is still so new and in part because it mutates so quickly. For most Web sites, expenses are always higher than the revenue received from PPC advertising. Most operations contemplating a move online are doing it to save money; printing costs tend to be the biggest line item in a publisher's budget. But there's no guarantee that Web-only versions of newspapers will be profitable.
It's far from clear whether any Web-only publications exist, or will exist, with the resources necessary to fling talented reporters all around the globe in order to get relevant, revelatory news. Papers like the Times have news desks in Africa and Asia, and stringers willing to endure discomfort and danger in order to get the story; it remains to be seen whether any websites can inspire this kind of loyalty, and whether they'll have the financial resources to back up their journalists.
Form and content
One thing should be kept in mind, as the news industry creeps onto the screen. Investigative journalism is the sort of reporting that has made newspapers so integral to modern society. If this were somehow to be lost in the transition to the Web, where the news comes in fast, short bites, stories don't often exceed 1,500 words, and in many cases the "reporters" rewrite press releases for pennies, the world would be losing something of tremendous importance.
Newspapers have been called the watchdog of democracy, and indeed, an independent, free press fills this role the way nothing else can. If the press loses its ability to perform this function, if Web news becomes nothing more than rehashed press releases and bloggers' comments on same, we will have lost much more than the newsprint on our fingers. The information and perspective we get from true journalists today will be hard to replace, if we ever allow it to die out.
Still, it's possible to read the Tribune Company's bankruptcy as merely a sign of the changing times. Print readership is down, advertising is waning, and pages everywhere are getting smaller and fewer. If the print industry will fade in our lifetimes, someone has to be the first to go, and the Tribune Company might be it. The Cubs will be sold off, along with most of the TV and radio stations. The Web properties will be sold, and will most likely land on their feet. The Tribune and the LA Times, venerable though they are, may not be so fortunate.
