Beta, busy signals and broadsheets

How'd you like to be a paginator at the Times after reading this?

Arthur Sulzberger - Given the constant erosion of the printed press, do you see the New York Times still being printed in five years?
"I really don't know whether we'll be printing the Times in five years, and you know what? I don't care, either," he says. He's looking at how best to manage the transition from print to Internet.

Did you ever wonder how pony express couriers felt about the telegraph?

The days of newspapers' print editions are numbered, especially broadsheets. Cellphones about the size of a credit card send and receive voice calls and e-mail, store and play music, take video and photographs, offer video games and online access to news and entertainment, and include a calculator, stopwatch and alarm clock. iPod Shuffles are so small they're a choking hazard. And we're still expected to wrestle with a broadsheet newspaper on a crowded commuter train?

It's true that you can't get cell reception on the subway, and you can't take a cellphone to kill time while waiting around on jury duty. Print still has the advantage of greater portability. However,

What about the costs of development and computerization?
"These costs aren't even near what print costs," Sulzberger explains. "The last time we made a major investment in print, it cost no less than a billion dollars. Site development costs don't grow to that magnitude."

How much longer do you think companies are going to put up with that just so you can take a paper into the restroom?

Someday we will explain to our children terms such as "above the fold" and "jumpline," and the yellowed editions people like us will hold on to will be good only for show and tell.

UPDATE: Ladies and gentlemen, the publisher of the newspaper of record.

Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher of the New York Times, has taken some flack for sounding a bit glum about the prospects for print journalism at the World Economic Conference, held last month in Davos.

On Feb. 8, the newspaper Ha'aretz quoted Mr. Sulzberger thusly, responding to a question about whether the Times will still be printed on paper in five years:

"I really don't know whether we'll be printing the Times in five years, and you know what? I don't care either."

On Wednesday, in a speech to Times employees, Mr. Sulzberger plans to clarify the message attributed to him in Ha'aretz. The Times supplied the Observer with a portion of his text in advance:

"We are continuing to invest in our newspapers, for we believe that they will be around for a very long time. This point of view is not about nostalgia or a love of newsprint. Instead, it is rooted in fundamental business realities: Our powerful and trusted print brands continue to draw educated and affluent audiences.

"Traditional print newspaper audiences are still significantly larger than their Web counterparts. Print continues to command high levels of reader engagement. And, of course, we still make most of our money from print advertising and circulation revenue. And yes, I remember what I said here last year and what I was supposed to have said last month at Davos about not having a printed product in five years time.

"What I was supposed to have said." He plans to say that to a room lousy with journalists and not be called on it. And he probably won't be.