The question is this: Will the newspaper Web site eventually replace the daily printed product? It is proven fact that the Internet can be timely, give us the flexibility to provide video enhancements to our news and the advantage of posting breaking news.

Newspapers struggle across the country due to their readers leaving the daily home delivery subscription for the free sites to get their daily news fix. Twenty-four hour news channels have overloaded us with not just news, but opinions. We get messages from the right and left which have become more a form of entertainment than relaying news without bias to us. Some of the best comedies today come from Fox News and MSNBC.

Newspapers for the most part have remained true to their beliefs of informing their communities on the news without compromising their integrity. We educate more than entertain our readers. We compete with different forms of news for your time. Our strength is and always will be our local content. Our goal is for you to find the work we put out to be compelling enough to read each day. Some days are better than others, but for the most part I believe we deliver on that promise.

The backbone of any newspaper is people who subscribe and pay for news that they consider important to them. For less than a price of mailing a letter you can receive the newspaper delivered to your mailbox every day.

In today’s economy, that is a miracle that continues to exist. I for one hope the printed product will never leave us. There is something exciting about picking up the newspaper and reading a story that a reporter has put their heart and soul into. I prefer my news in a concentrated detailed format as opposed to just small portions. Today that puts me in the minority, but hopefully the world will not just become YouTube videos.

The Internet gives you the chance to read part of our newspaper at work or at your convenience but then so does the printed product. I am not sure I want my employees surfing the net at work, but our studies show we have a spike in the numbers during the work day. If the newspaper is woven into the fabric of a community, what does this say about the newspaper’s Web site?

It is a question we struggle with in each of our planning meetings: How much of the paper do we put up for free and what do we hold for the daily home subscriber? Through September of 2009, we have had 3,023,210 page views and have had 865,164 unique visits. That averages out to 3,778 readers per day who view the Washington Times-Herald on the Web. These are significant numbers that cannot be ignored. We consider our Web site to be an extension of the daily newspaper.

The Web site has a lot of features that are not in the paper, and the newspaper has some features that we do not put on the Web. Our goal must be to balance both entities and keep us relevant to the readers. My hope is we achieve those goals and continue publishing long beyond my years.

n Ron Smith is the publisher of the Washington Times-Herald.

E-mail him at rsmith@washtimesher ald.com