The Closure of Papers

At the start of the year, I wrote a column of prediction for 2009 for Bloomberg. One was that a major newspaper would make the switch to web-only publishing. So I was interested to see that the Seattle-Post Intelligencer is making precisely that switch. It won't be the last. It is hard to see many papers surviving in their current form. As a journalist, I can see the sadness in that. But the sooner journalism moves into the new age the better. There aren't enough profitable publishers at the moment - and profits won't return until the switch to the new technology is complete.