FCCJ members will need no reminding of the bleak situation facing their trade: 15,000 newspaper journalists sacked in 2008 in the United States alone; thousands more around the world likely to be jobless by the end of the year, and some of the most venerable titles in print media, including The Boston Globe, dangerously close to extinction.

The first quarter of this year was the worst on record for print journalism in the U.S. Yet big newspapers attract 10 to 20 times more readers than in the pre-Internet era, when hard-copy and online versions are combined. The problem, of course, is that most of those readers are no longer paying customers.

“The elite press is in this terrible pickle,” explained Blaine Harden of The Washington Post during a recent discussion at the Club on the state of journalism, which also featured Gwen Robinson of the Financial Times and Donald Macintyre, Time magazine's Seoul bureau chief. “There is this incredible problem about where you get money.”

Harden said his own newspaper epitomizes the problem. It is still hugely popular, with more than half the population of Washington, D.C., seeing the Post in print or online every day. But with online advertising attracting just 11 percent of the revenue of hard-copy versions, the paper lost $200 million last year. “Nobody has figured out how to monetize these eyeballs,” Harden said.

While journalism won’t disappear, said Macintyre, the biggest casualties are likely to be investigative journalism and overseas reporting.

One way out of the pickle is to simply charge for online subscriptions, but most publications have found that readers just defect to free content elsewhere. In an effort to buck this trend, one of the industry’s biggest hitters, Rupert Murdoch, announced in May that he would end free access to the News International stable of titles.

“We are now in the midst of an epochal debate over the value of content, and it is clear to many newspapers that the current model is malfunctioning,” said the News Corp. chairman and CEO.

“If he succeeds, everybody will follow suit,” said Robinson. “It will provide a model for the industry.”

Can newspapers rebuild the subscription wall? Macintyre: “The only way back is for everyone to put up a wall at the same time, which raises all sorts of antitrust issues.” For Harden, the strategy is reminiscent of the Prohibition era in the U.S. “What’s going to stop people buying and copying – redistributing?” he wonders.

Robinson sounded a more upbeat note on the industry transition, citing the creation of new journalism jobs and online innovations. Harden suggested that one way to protect print journalism might be to create blind trusts or NPR-style quasi-government bodies. All agreed on one thing: Whatever happens, the old model is dead. ❶