Medienspiegel.ch

Im Intellektuellenmagazin «Atlantic» zeigt sich Michael Hirschorn um die Zukunft der «New York Times» besorgt:

«But the business strategy of The New York Times, as practiced since Abe Rosenthal's editorship in the early '70s […] has undermined the perceived value of serious newspaper journalism as well. Under the guise of "service", The Times has been on a steady march toward temporarily profitable lifestyle fluff. Escapes! Styles! T magazine(s)! For a time, this fluff helped underwrite the foreign bureaus, enterprise reporting, and endless five-part Pulitzer Prize aspirants. But it has gradually hollowed out journalism's brand, by making the newspaper feel disposable. The fluff is more fun to read than the loss-leading reports about starvation in Sudan, but it isn’t the sort of thing you miss when it's gone.»

«Regardless of what happens over the next few months, The Times is destined for significant and traumatic change. At some point soon - sooner than most of us think - the print edition, and with it The Times as we know it, will no longer exist»,

«What would a post-print Times look like? Forced to make a Web-based strategy profitable, a reconstructed Web site could start mixing original reportage with Times-endorsed reporting from other outlets with straight-up aggregation. This would allow The Times to continue to impose its live-from-the-Upper-West-Side brand on the world without having to literally cover every inch of it. In an optimistic scenario, the remaining reporters - now reporters-cum-bloggers, in many cases - could use their considerable savvy to mix their own reporting with that of others, giving us a more integrative, real-time view of the world unencumbered by the inefficiencies of the traditional journalistic form. Times readers might actually end up getting more exposure than they currently do to reporting resources scattered around the globe, and to areas and issues that are difficult to cover in a general-interest publication.
[…]
In this scenario, nytimes.com would begin to resemble a bigger, better, and less partisan version of the Huffington Post, which, until someone smarter or more deep-pocketed comes along, is the prototype for the future of journalism: a healthy dose of aggregation, a wide range of contributors, and a growing offering of original reporting. This combination has allowed the HuffPo to digest the news that matters most to its readers at minimal cost, while it focuses resources in the highest-impact areas. What the HuffPo does not have, at least not yet, is a roster of contributors who can set agendas, conduct in-depth investigations, or break high-level news. But the post-print Times still would.
[…]
Ultimately, the death of The New York Times - or at least its print edition - would be a sentimental moment, and a severe blow to American journalism. But a disaster? In the long run, maybe not.»

Update, 15. Januar 2009: So schnell werde die gedruckte Ausgabe der «New York Times» nicht verschwinden, schreibt Catherine Mathis, SVP Corporate Communications bei der New York Times Co., in einer Replik auf Hirschorns Artikel. Und Hirschorn dupliziert.