I don’t cover a lot of newspaper news on Tuned In, but this seemed worth noting. The Christian Science Monitor is ceasing to be a daily newspaper, at least if you take the “paper” part literally. Starting in April, the only place to find a daily version of the paper will be on the Web.
Why does this matter to you or me? You’re reading this on a computer; I’m writing it on one. Content-wise, it’s all good. And I agree; having written for a web publication before I came to Time, I don’t romanticize print over pixellated reading. (Or vice versa; it’s all writing, it’s all a job.) I subscribe to the print New York Times, but I also read as much or more of it online. The hitch is that, while the Web is supplanting print in many ways as a source of readers, it’s still catching up as a source of money. Most publications give away their content online, and while they’re selling much more Web advertising than they used to, it hasn’t yet filled in the gap.
No money, no news. That’s a common refrain in journalism nowadays—and a problem, I should note, in which I have a personal stake.
The Monitor will attempt to make some money under its news strategy, among other ways, by publishing a weekly magazine. I learned about that by reading a newspaper. On the Web. For free.