Out with the old, in with the [TBA]

According to popular blogger and New York University assistant professor Clay Shirky, we are in the midst of a revolution.

In a March 2009 blog posting Shirky writes about the dying-out of newspapers and the revolution it has spawned, as the industry looks for solutions and replacements. He points to the digital age as playing a large part in the death of print.

His conclusion? "No one experiment is going to replace what we are now losing with the demise of news on paper, but over time, the collection of new experiments that do work might give us the journalism we need."

Shane Shick, a print veteran turned full-time online editor at It World Canada, agrees. "There's not necessarily just going to be one replacement model," Shick said in a telephone interview.

Shick acknowledges that the newspaper industry has been handed an expiry date as the focus moves to online media. But he is wary of the transition.

"We have to be careful not to treat print as simply a receptacle for online content," said Shick. "Reading [a newspaper] can be a very serendipitous experience."

In the future, Shick hopes to see a balance between print and online mediums. He cites Monocle, a global briefing magazine and website, as a successful example of print and online working harmoniously.

Monocle, which has a circulation upwards of 150,000, costs approximately $10 per issue. Its archived web content is only available to paid subscribers.