Newspaper executives and employees enjoyed the surge of interest in their Wednesday print editions. The industry has been suffering as earnings from print readership and ad sales plummet, and online ad sales (which generate much slimmer profits) and readership soar.
"I think there is an authority and finality, a sort of last word that comes from the printed edition of the newspaper," said Steve Hills, president and general manager of Washington Post Media.
Those among the parade of customers who bought copies of the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday agreed.
"This is a physical record of history being made," said Robert de la Madrid, who had tried five different locations before finally landing copies of The Times at the paper's headquarters. "As soon as you close the computer screen, that image is gone. And you can't frame the Internet."
Chris Garcia, 28, who purchased five copies of The Times, said he tried to keep papers marking history.
"You can hold it in your hand," he said. "It's real."
Some readers of The Times and other papers bought dozens of copies for friends and relatives. A black woman near San Francisco City Hall held up a copy of the Chronicle, posing for a picture in front of a statue of Abraham Lincoln.
Even as interest in print editions soared, newspaper executives said their websites remained the key outlet for the majority of readers. Several papers reported their online editions were drawing record traffic, including the Washington Post, which topped its previous high of 15.2 million daily page views.
The Times recorded 8.3 million page views, slightly above the high reached during the Southern California wildfires last year, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution recorded 5 million page views.
Said the Journal-Constitution's Wallace: "There's an understanding that people want information in all sorts of ways."
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james.rainey@latimes.com
