The Los Angeles Times, one of the biggest and best newspapers in the country, announced Jan. 25 that from thence forward the paper's website latimes.com would become the focus of its news efforts. As editor James E. O'Shea put it, he wanted the paper's journalists to view the web site, and not the dead-tree version, as the paper's "primary vehicle for delivering news."
In the same Times story, the writer notes that the Wall Street Journal already has moved most of its breaking news stories to its web site, saving more analytic stories for print editions.
I am sure smaller and more mobile newspapers moved in this direction a while ago. I have been saying for a year or so now that the print edition will continue to shrink and become an information tease or booster for the web site in the same way TV Guide boosts television and helps us connect with what we want to see on the tube.
The fact that papers such as the Journal and now the L.A. Times are taking a web first attitude tells me we are arriving at a tipping point toward newspaper web sites and away from print as we know it. Print will stay awhile, but it will be different.
Oh. The Times staffer in charge of training Times journos in ways of the web, Business Editor Russ Stanton, was one of my college journalism students in the late 70s. Well done, Russ, and good luck.
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