According to Business Week, the Hearst Corporation's San Francisco Chronicle is a perfect candidate for the transition from costly print to paperless. The Chronicle loses lots of money, is in a web-centric city, and its website is a dominant local portal. So why not transit to web-only now?

Some counter-arguments offered by Business Week include $24 million in guaranteed print subscription revenue, as well as print ad revenues still significantly higher than online.

“This model posits a total move online from weakness,” comments the Observer in the UK.

“But where's the evidence that a failing product on paper will somehow prosper on screen?”

Whether one considers the Chronicle, or other newspapers’ current business position as ‘failing products,’ everybody seems to have recognized the need to transition to online.

"The present model - meaning print - isn't going to work," said Warren Buffet, owner of Buffalo News and a director of the Washington Post Co., among other things.

The paperless newspaper doesn’t have to emerge from the debris of a failing product though. In Fortune’s investigation, it could be just the opposite, as the Washington Post dives into digital to build a new successful model.

With its team of platform-agnostic journalists, millions invested in its interactive unit, a rapid digital expansion through the acquisition of digital assets, the Post is on the road toward becoming a paperless newspaper.

“If Graham (chairman and CEO of The Post) and his people can't build a business model for journalism in the digital world, nobody can,” reports Fortune.

The harsh reality of this digital transition is that the Post’s online ad revenue, $103 million to reach eight million monthly visitors, can’t nearly make up for the $573 million advertisers paid to reach the Post’s print readers last year (mostly its 673,900 daily and 937,700 Sunday subscribers).

Yet there is little choice for that matter, so credit must be given to the forward-thinking efforts of the Post and diversification of assets, away from sole dependence on the print paper.

"If circulation is dropping, and we're trying to figure out how people are going to get their news, who am I to say no to trying out new avenues?" says Barry Svrluga, a sportswriter for the Post.

The major paperless newspaper isn’t around the corner, it’s in front of us, drawing nearer day by day.

But “if you can start from scratch without going through the toils and costs of transition, why not start a paperless paper of your own?” comments the Observer.

Then one might wonder, not whether major paperless newspapers are around the corner, but who will they be run by?

“People will want to know the scoop from the White House, the prospects for peace in the Middle East, and who's pitching for the Nationals, and someone will be there to tell them. We just don't know who that someone will be,” concludes Fortune.

Source: Media Guardian – CNNMoney.com