NY Times increases digital focus

Recent small changes in operations at The New York Times point towards prioritisation of digital over print.

Since Thursday, enterprise pitches for Page 1 of the print edition have been eliminated. Instead, editors from the various news desks will pitch their best enterprise pieces for digital slots on what will be called “Dean’s List.” The stories that make Dean’s List “will receive the very best play on all our digital platforms – web, mobile, social and others yet to come.”

In a memo, Executive editor Dean Baquet explained why changes are being made:

“The changes are intended to ensure that our digital platforms are much less tethered to print deadlines. … This new system will, in particular, give us more flexibility in targeting readers on mobile (which now receives more than half of our traffic) and on platforms like Facebook (where we are rolling out new strategies for presenting our journalism)…”In short, our goal is to further elevate the primacy of our digital platforms in the daily life of the newsroom.”