John Yemma, editor of The Christian Science Monitor, provides an overview at paidContent about the first year after limiting the paper edition to one day a week and making the transition to mostly digital. Via a video interview I did with him in November 2008, you can compare what is he is saying now with what he was thinking just before the launch.
At paidContent, he writes:
A year ago, we ceased publishing the daily, 100-year-old Christian Science Monitor newspaper and launched a weekly magazine to complement our website, on which we doubled down by reorienting our newsroom to be web-first. Our web traffic climbed from 6 million page views last April to 13 million in February. Our print circulation rose from 43,000 to 77,000 in the same period.
His article is especially insightful for those interested in the prospects for high quality, ethically sound journalism in the digital age.
As for multimedia and interactivity, he writes:
What about multimedia and interactivity? You’ll see very little video on CSMonitor.com. This is not to say that we haven’t experimented with the medium. It just hasn’t delivered enough clicks to justify the effort. That will probably change one day, and if it does we’ll take another look as long as it enhances our editorial mission. As for interactivity, we typically don’t invite readers to comment at the bottom of our stories. Don’t get me wrong, we want thoughtful comments. But comment-happy sites that don’t moderate often allow a brilliant piece to be followed by a string of rotten tomatoes thrown by—how can I put this delicately?—comment jerks.
