Christian Science Monitor to Cease Print Edition

Although not an appraisal related post, it is interesting to note that more and more publications, both small and large, are moving to the internet on online publications. The NY Times is reporting that the Christian Science Monitor will soon cease to publish a daily print edition, instead shifting to a daily online version by April 2009, and add new weekly print magazine format. The Christian Science Monitor has been in publication for the past 100 years.

The NY Times article reports The Monitor is an anomaly in journalism, a nonprofit financed by a church and delivered through the mail. But with seven Pulitzer Prizes and a reputation for thoughtful writing and strong international coverage, it long maintained an outsize influence in the publishing world, which declined as its circulation has slipped to 52,000, from a high of more than 220,000 in 1970.

Dropping the print edition seems to tempt newspaper executives. At a recent conference held by the City University of New York’s journalism school, a group of publishing executives discussed what a cost-efficient newsroom should look like. They eventually settled on casting aside paper and starting fresh on the Web.

To read the NY Times article, click HERE.

How is this relevant to us in the appraisal field? I think we soon will be finding more and more items and news on line. Technology is changing the way Americans are gathering information and has been for the past 5-10 years. The Kindel book reader from Amazon is another interesting example. Instead of opening a book, you can open a small computer screen that acts like a book. As the generations change, so do the lifestyles and acceptance of technology. Business have to adapt, and so do we.

As a personal example, here in the DC area I used to subscribe to the daily delivery of the Washington Post. I recently canceled with the exception of the Sunday paper since I was rarely reading the paper (for a variety of reasons) and was finding most of the local and national news online, either at the Post website (for sports) and other national papers.

I am sure this is going to only be the start of many of these type of changes with newspapers and books. No question that having information readily available on the internet makes our jobs easier. But the loss of newspapers and potentially books to the virtual world makes me a bit sad.