This might go down as the week that they took paper out of the newspaper business.
Detroit's two daily newspapers announced Tuesday that they plan to reduce home delivery to just three days a week. And the trade organization for newspaper editors scheduled an April vote on whether to drop "paper" from its name.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday, December 24, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 44 words Type of Material: Correction
On the Media: An On the Media column in Section A on Dec. 17 about cuts in the newspaper business said the Christian Science Monitor "would go online-only." The 100-year-old newspaper plans to cease its five-day-a-week print publication but maintain a weekend magazine-style publication.
The idea in both cases is to fully embrace the shift of many readers and advertisers to the Internet, where many news executives believe the business must stake its future, and to finally begin to break away from a 400-year-old delivery system.
Bosses at the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News said they will save millions of dollars they would have spent to print and deliver their newspapers, which have been steadily losing circulation.
Better to alter the delivery system, they argued, than to further cut the news staffs.
Tuesday's announcement followed recent news that the Christian Science Monitor would go online-only and that suburban papers near Detroit and Phoenix would cut home delivery.
But I worry that the news organizations hacking away their paper editions may also be cutting the cord with one of their most powerful assets -- the old and faithful readers who still covet the printed word and who would sooner turn on "Wheel of Fortune" than look to a dot-com for their news.
I hear from readers all the time who say how much they still love the printed paper. "I can't start the day without it," many say.
These paper loyalists are not all ancient or technophobes. They had, after all, e-mailed their thoughts to me. They simply said they had a visceral connection to print, often attached to the cup of coffee or loved one they share the paper with.
The Detroit papers are gambling that these core readers will stick with them at least to receive the paper on Thursday, Friday and Sunday, the days it will still land on the doorstep.
They would like to believe the readers will keep up the remainder of the week by picking up a paper at the corner store or by navigating to the papers' two websites, which are supposed to be expanded and improved.
"People are nervous," said investigative reporter Jim Schaefer. "This is something that would be hard to reverse. This is not like a magazine or neighborhood news sections, those tricks we have tried for years and then reversed them. This is viewed as something you live or die with.
"And, boy, everyone is really hoping we can live with it."
