The New York Times, founded in 1851, is one of the oldest print media organizations in the U.S. However, in more recent years, the company's practices have come under fire for its reliance on paper printing. A campaign called Stop the Presses has launched to expose the company, claiming that it uses 59 million trees a year to run its physical paper production. This translates to around 2.832 billion pounds of CO2 released annually just from the trees themselves. And this number doesn't include the tremendous amount of fossil fuels used to transport such a product.

The main issue with the NYT's paper printing is it is no longer necessary as many readers have migrated to digital mediums. Furthermore, research from 2004 found that using a PDA or other portable device to view news releases significantly fewer greenhouse gases.

The newspaper has not yet commented on the campaign, but the backlash has caused even its own Twitter account to lose verification. Further, print subscriptions have seen a 7% decrease in the last two years. Meanwhile, the consequence of relying on the dated format has been dire, with over 2,200 American print newspapers closing in the last two decades.

This raises the question if a newspaper founded over 170 years ago should step into the 21st century and focus more on what readers are actually consuming. Making such a move would lessen the environmental footprint of the organization, while still providing coverage of the news in a timely and accurate fashion. The world waits to see if the NYT responds to the criticism and makes the necessary changes.



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