If the Old Gray Lady is reporting one of the worst financial seasons in its own history, what does that say about the rest of the newspaper industry? It may not say a whole lot that’s new. There was a time when the New York Times was queen of red, white and black, the definitive source for wire reporters and weeklies to quote in their own stories. But the explosion of Web news sites as well as the multiplication of blogs at the rate of a lair of healthy rabbits have created a whole new marketplace luring seekers of breaking news and commentary. Newspaper ads both online and in the print edition fell 10.6 percent, echoing grim news for the industry as a whole earlier this year. So what’s the game plan?

The good news is About.com, the informational website that’s part of the NYT conglomerate, formerly known as The Mining Company, saw a 25 percent increase in revenue. Part of that can in my opinion be attributed to the clever placement of ad links bearing a strong similarity graphically to simple informational links, along with the fact just about every word in the dictionary can be tied to content organized by individual topic under broad categories like Health and Travel.

It’s irresistible to wonder if the paper isn’t suffering because of political endorsements as well as its unfortunate mishaps with reporters like Jayson Blair who completely fictionalized large parts of stories during his 4-year stint as a NYT reporter.  In addition, the paper has closed a printing plant and resorted to employee buyouts. When large numbers of people are forced to look for jobs, does that also produce a backlash? It can’t have a positive impact on the brand, that’s for sure.

The Times has, like many other print publications, moved eagerly towards the Internet and digital distribution. A couple years ago, Wired did a story about a stand-alone digital reader developed in conjunction with Microsoft. Some might simply say the NYT is moving towards the same playing field as other print publications—the vast empire of the Web. And some might point to Google’s first quarter profit increase of 30% as a very good reason to do so.

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