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tonyPick [soylentnews.org] writes:

The Guardian has an article discussing the decision by the publishers of The Independent newspaper to cancel the print edition [theguardian.com] and move to an online only model.

In the end it was the internet which killed the Independent newspaper and not Rupert Murdoch. Hit by a price war launched by the News UK owner in the 1990s, the Indy was a casualty of an industrial revolution which has changed the economics of the newspaper business for ever.

The Independent was a major British newspaper which at it's height in 1989 reached a circulation of over 400,000 in the UK.

The story is covered in more detail in the main Guardian article [theguardian.com] as well as additional coverage at the BBC [bbc.co.uk], where there is speculation that this may be the first of many similar transitions.

Stephen Glover, a co-founder of the Independent, said the paper was selling "so few copies that it doesn't really make sense to go on printing it every day".

Speaking on Thursday - before the move was confirmed - he told BBC Newsnight: "If it is true then I think it will be the first of many papers which stop their print editions and have another existence online."

Further information and the history of the newspaper [wikipedia.org] is at wikipedia.

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