The New York Times...our Web site of record?

New York Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger tells Haaretz.com that he's not sure if the Old Gray Lady will even be producing a print edition five years from now. This is being dictated, apparently, by the digital revolution, which they ostensibly blame for their industry's overall decline. The Times itself has seen declining profits for four straight years, while their parent company recently fessed up to losing $570 million, largely because of problems with their sister rag, The Boston Globe.

I tend to think that it's much more complicated than a simple switch from print to digital. People are tired of having these monolithic, heritage media institutions set the national agenda. The Internet has simply provided a conduit for people to easily disseminate alternative information and opinions. For decades, the Times has been unabashedly liberal in their reporting and on their opinion pages. While I find David Brooks and Thomas Friedman to be insightful and intellectually honest columnists, Maureen Dowd, Paul Krugman and Frank Rich make up an unholy trinity of leftist partisan hacks that makes David Duke look moderate. I personally hope that the Times quickly goes from print to all digital and then quickly goes away.

Sulzberger doesn't seem to really get the real point of the digital media revolution, but it may not really matter; I'm not sure there's much he could do about it anyway.