A short time ago, Nicholas Lemann wrote in the New Yorker "As journalism moves to the Internet, the main project ought to be moving reporters there, not stripping them away." Now, the dean of Columbia's graduate school of journalism appears to be reconsidering his position with the announcement that he was cutting the budget of CJRDaily.org "nearly in half."

The announcement prompted the site's managing editor Steve Lovelady and assistant managing editor Brian Keefer to resign in protest of the cuts. “It’s a fundamental policy dispute about the allocation of resources,” Mr. Lovelady said. “Nick has decided to spend the money on a direct-mail campaign for the magazine, in hopes of saving subscription revenue. To me, that sounds like something out of the 19th century. He’s taking the one, fresh, smart thing he has and gutting it.”

The apparent main reason for the cuts: an inability to raise sufficient funds to keep the site running at full-strength. He told the New York Times that this is "the same quandary confronting most news organizations today — how to pay for an online staff when the site is free to readers." As a result, the popular media-watchdog site will soon start selling advertising, sell its archival material, and hold conferences. A direct-mail campaign will also be launched to increase subscriptions to the print version of the magazine.

Reactions by the journalism community to Lemann's decision were not favorable. Paul Conley believes the move is wrongheaded for many reasons. Conley preferred CJRDaily to the magazine because it "feels as if it's written by people who work in journalism rather than by folks who used to work in journalism...." Bruce Nussbaum of Businessweek calls the decision to cut its "fast-growing" online operation an extraordinary mistake."

Dan Gillmor understands the financial concerns but doesn't believe the move will help CJR's financial position: "You can appreciate the position he faces. This was about money, and he doesn’t think he has enough to operate the magazine and put sufficient resources into the website, too. But this is a move squarely in the wrong direction for the long term, however much short-term sense it may seem to make financially. . . This is a move by an Old Media person, not someone truly looking to the audience and participants of the future. Not surprising, but disappointing."

Jay Rosen in the New York Times: “I’m sure their current subscribers want it in print, but you have to look at your potential subscribers. “Since the profession is going toward the Web, in the long run, that’s the smarter move.”

Jim Romenesko, meanwhile, posts Nicholas Lemann's formal statement on the cuts: "...We have had considerable success in fundraising for Columbia Journalism Review, but not so much that we can keep CJRDaily at the same editorial budget it has had, so we are going to reduce that budget, with regret. But even after the reduction, CJR will have the most substantial Web reporting and writing staff of any publication its size that I know of. We are making that commitment because we believe so deeply in the journalistic promise of the Web, even though, as everybody in journalism knows, it does not yet produce revenues commensurate with its quality. Our goal for Columbia Journalism Review, under the leadership of Victor Navasky, it that it be, in print and on the Web, as strong a media monitor as we can make it on the resources we have."