Asked by Media Bistro’s David S. Hirschman how many print years the L.A. Times has left, the paper’s editor Russ Stanton answers as follows:
“One hundred twenty-six! [laughs] But, you know, somebody, somewhere soon is going to throw in the towel on print. For us, I think that for now, our core base of readers are the baby boomers, and I think that we’ve got at least another 35 year run in print. On the other hand, someone, somewhere is going to grow the revenue from online enough that it can support a newsroom of our size and talent. And when that happens, that’s when you can start, if you so choose, to pull the plug on the paper.
“If you have the revenue to pay for the journalism, you can eliminate the print. I mean, the people are only half of the cost — the stuff that costs so much are the paper and the presses you need to print the darn thing. But I don’t see that happening around here in my lifetime.”
I respectfully disagree. I think that newspapers printed on paper will be exctinct by….oh, 2020? 2025 at the latest? Fifteen years, give or take. Not 25 and certainly not 35.