The Christian Science Monitor will print its final edition tomorrow as it moves to an online only publication.
The Monitor announced its plans in October to end its daily print edition and become the first major international paper to embrace digital media.
Earlier this month the Seattle-Post Intelligencer announced it was ending its print publication and moving entirely online.
John Yemma
The Monitor says that by discontinuing its five times a week print edition it will reduce current net losses of $18.9 million a year on $12.5 million in revenue to $10.5 million within five years.
Editor John Yemma says the paper will still offer a weekly print edition for subscribers and it will launch a daily e-mail newsletter in May. The main focus will be on its Web site CSMonitor.com, which attracts 2.5 million unique visitors a month.
“Websites need to be straightforward and not have a lot of complexity in them – the differentiator for you is your content,” Mr. Yemma told the World Editors Forum in an online seminar.
“We aren’t using any fancy new applications,” he said. “The best route for financial viability is more or less continuous updating on the web. It’s just continuous content without technological impediment – that’s the fastest way to grow. We want our journalists reporting, not learning archaic coding or flash graphics.”
The Boston-based Monitor will maintain an assignment desk with 30 writers and 30 editors, eight overseas bureaus, eight domestic bureaus and a Washington bureau. The Web site will have an eight-to 10-person production staff. One editorial person will oversee the daily newsletter, and 12 the weekly newspaper.
“Our journalists are going to be very busy. They’re going to write a bit shorter and much faster,” said Yemma.
