The story so far

In October, the Christian Science Monitor announced that as of April it will no longer be printed on paper. The Newark Star-Ledger announced a 40 percent staff cut. Radar closed, for what seemed like the fourteenth time, and Culture and Travel closed for the first and probably only time. Time, Inc. announced it would be laying off six hundred staffers, and the Gannett news chain announced it would be laying off 10 percent of its workforce. Condé Nast shrank Men's Vogue into a Vogue supplement, pruned Portfolio down to ten issues a year, and asked its other magazines to cut budgets by 10 percent.

In November, the publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt said it was not going to purchase any new manuscripts in the foreseeable future. U.S. News and World Report announced that it, too, would go all-web, except for consumer guides.

In December, Fine Books & Collectibles said it was trading in its print magazine for an electronic newsletter, and the Rare Book Review ceased publication altogether. On so-called Black Wednesday, Simon & Schuster laid off thirty-five staffers, Penguin and Harper Collins froze salaries, and Random House underwent a massive consolidation, turning five divisions into three, a change expected to lead to many more layoffs. A few days later, the New York Times quietly announced it was putting up its new building as collateral for a loan of cash. Then Tribune Company, the owner of the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune filed for bankruptcy. And today Macmillan, owner of FSG, Picador, and St. Martin's, joined Penguin and Harper in a salary freeze.