Boston Globe to Kill -- um, Transition -- Health/Science Section

Months after the Boston Globe reduced the status of its business section as a bundled section within the Metro section, the Globe has announced plans to kill its health/science section, which had appeared on Mondays.

The Boston Phoenix reported that the Boston Globe plans to -- well, not eliminate the coverage, but transition it to its popular g section. Launched recently, the g section is very popular, and includes entertainment, TV listings, arts, comics, etc. And now, health news.

Science coverage will be included in the business section.

The Globe's Caleb Solomon, managing editor, told the Phoenix, Roughly speaking, the paper will have about as much personal-health coverage as it did before. And the same goes for science coverage. "We do a Monday business and innovation section, and as you know, a significant portion of the innovation economy is science driven," he says. "Is coverage of a biotech company business coverage or science coverage?... There will probably be increased science content inside the Monday business section, because that seems to be a natural alignment with the innovation economy of Boston."

However, since the number of pages in the g section will not increase, it's safe to say that health coverage in the Globe will decline -- which is interesting given the importance of biotech is to the Boston economy.

Mainstream Media (MSM) Will Experience at Least Five Changes in 2009

1. Dozens of secondary newspapers and magazines will shift to an online-only model in 2009. Already this year, FinancialWeek announced that it is shifting over this month. The benefits of the online-only model include substantial savings now that they no longer have to print, mail and deliver content (to newsstands and homes). The downside: they lose three revenue streams – display and classified advertising from the print edition as well as subscription fees – and now rely on online advertising to fund their operations. Online subscription fees have worked for only select media – even the New York Times couldn’t make a fee-based plan work. Expect some surprises as some larger market papers find themselves in real trouble (for example, the Times' cutting its dividend). Addendum: The day after we posted this, the Times reported that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, a good, large-market paper in a two-paper town, may go online-only or shut down within 60 days.
2. Traditional media that continue to publish print editions will update their formats to include more maps, graphics, lists, ranking and stats, along with shorter articles. These print editions will also be shorter, with some papers – including the Denver Post and Boston Globe – having shed stand-alone business sections. The same holds from magazines. As Fortune tech reporter, David Kirkpatrick wrote on Twitter: "an indicator of the sorry state of the economy – and the magazine industry: the new issue of Time – a mere pamphlet." (Don’t forget: Time and Fortune are published by the same company! And Fortune’s current issue is pretty thin, too.)
3. These smaller floating business sections are not likely to achieve their publishers' goal because the sections are more difficult for readers to find and these sections provide less coverage of business at a time when the economy is in turmoil and undergoing seismic shocks -- a time when people need to more closely understand what's happening and how it impacts them. These smaller sections will also be less interesting to advertisers, too, because readers may easily skip over them.
4. The value of content is changing. Traditionally, the value of the entire newspaper or magazine was worth a lot. Now, individual articles (available often by RSS feeds, Tweets, Google or other search engines) are worth more than the newspaper as a whole because technology has enabled us to consume only that which really interests us. It’s more efficient this way, but paging through a newspaper ensures you get a broader sense of what’s going on. It’s a more niche world.
5. Stringers and citizen journalists will become more important. Because of staff cutbacks and bureau closings, MSM may not be able to find and send reporters or crews to cover breaking, important news outside their immediate region. The tragic shootings in Mumbai is an example where MSM, including some of the biggest names in journalism, relied on first-hand local reports. For example, CNN uses footage from iReport, and has been posting citizen video footage since Hurricane Katrina. Expect this trend to continue.