Print Book Reviews Shrink While Online Versions Grow

RAY SUAREZ:

Yesterday, the Los Angeles Times published its final standalone Book Review section and announced its future book coverage will be combined with the other arts in their calendar section. And that newspaper is not alone.

Jeffrey Brown has our Media Unit story.

JEFFREY BROWN:

In our ongoing coverage of the media, we've been reporting on the financial problems and editorial changes at the Los Angeles Times, and this latest move certainly must be seen in that light.

But the decline in newspaper coverage of books, as well as other arts, is now widespread and has been going on for some time.

The demise of the Times Book Review, in fact, leaves only three papers with separate book sections: the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.

But even as newspapers struggle, reviews and discussions of books online are on the rise. We talk about these changes and their impact now with Steve Wasserman, who edited the L.A. Times Book Review for nearly nine years, until 2005. He's now a literary agent in New York.

And Kassia Krozser is founder and editor of Booksquare.com, a Web site that reviews books and focuses on the publishing industry.

Well, Steve Wasserman, you and some fellow former editors at the Los Angeles Times sent a letter to the paper recently calling this a, quote, "philistine blunder." Now, that's pretty blunt.

STEVE WASSERMAN, Former Editor, Los Angeles Times Book Review:

Yes. Stronger language perhaps could have been used, but we thought this was the most moderate language we could use under the circumstances, since the Times in its wisdom has decided to end publication of a section which was first seen in 1975 and continuously published as a weekly section devoted to the review of books ever since until Sunday.