the New York Times and the New World 2/15/13

FACTS

The New York Times admitted and $88-million loss for 2012 in a story published on July 26th, 2012 by their own press.

In the fourth quarter of 2012, the New York Times Company "completed the sale of the About Group for $300 million", cutting ties with www.about.com and it's related brands officially.

Digital Advertising, analogous to the moneymaking construct of it's paper companion, take more of the percentage of revenues, but digital ads are bringing in less profit than before anyway.

OPINIONS & CONCLUSIONS

Politically, the New York Times matters to me because, as I'm starting to actually follow the news daily, the coverage produced by the New York Times appears to be the most balanced of what I can find. If ad revenue continues to drop for one of the last titans of print news, where will we go for honest, mostly objective coverage of the world's events?

Like most of pre-internet media, The Times is struggling to adapt to the "age of information." This is weird, because the New York Times' business is information. Network TV can't compete with the convenience of Hulu.com, and the New York Times' weird limited paywall will probably keep some of you reading this from viewing my hyperlinked citations from the FACT section.

The New York Times is in a shrinking corner of the news media. As the rate-of-loss increases, if the Times doesn't act, their corner will quickly disappear.

IDEAS

Can the Times catch up with everybody else before going bankrupt? They have to. Here's Three Ways they can make up the difference:

1. Get rid of all paywalls (even marginal ones)

Although they lock in monthly profits for those who subscribe to the website, it keeps out those who haven't yet subscribed just before they would sign up and pay.

2. Get more aggressive on twitter.

Although the New York Times has a Twitter account, most of their tweets are taken up by links to a website that, after viewing 10 stories in a particular month, leads to a paywall. The result is a public that feels like the Times is trying to make a quick buck off other's concern.
If the New York Times is as esteemed as they advertise, and has the best reporters around, they should be talented enough  to cover breaking stories within that limit. (AKA no more "http://nytimes.com//4r8h48hfh84f4 #libya" tweets) This would, at least, put the Times back on people's radars as a relevant organization, and break the feeling that news companies aren't the source of online news.

 Twitter's one-hundred-forty character limit is the ultimate test of a great hard-news reporter.

3. Produce a cheap online Evening News Program from the New York Times offices.

To draw attention to the website, and merge old media with new, an online live evening news show, anchored by a fair and balanced reporter and fed by the days headlines, would bring ten times the hits to the Times' website.
Although network news has decreasing viewership, a web show would be the perfect place to experiment with format and make enough noise to get the esteemed hard news of the Times to a wider audience, gaining ad revenue once the viewers come. Your move, Brian Williams.

I believe in the New York Times, but I also believe that the only person subscribed to their physical edition right now is that guy in the black turtleneck and tweed jacket, with the apartment overlooking Central Park. Like pulpy NYT pages, he hasn't aged well. He shaves his entire head now for style (baldness) and doesn't own any modem past dial-up. The New York Times is an old man and they will only mold over faster if they don't shake things up.