Hefty. Mark Glaser's piece on the NY Times merging its online and print newsrooms is a worthwhile, if time consuming, read. The article is both a feature on the event and an interview with Martin Nisenholtz, tops at NYT Digital, and Bill Keller, big kahuna of the print editorial side.
While there's been a bit of Web triumphalism going on, I'm of a mind that this will only be as good as the number of effective bridgers in the mix. Folks like Adrian Holovaty who understand the rhythm and codes of the newsroom but can really hack too.
This isn't unprecedented, MSNBC has done good stuff with a similar mentality as well as a number of smaller print concerns, but it may be the final stamp of legitimacy needed to push along the slow pokes in the hinterlands. "If it's good enough for The Times...". Along with what the Associated Press is doing, we may also see an impetus for journalism educators to more aggressively address how to prep their students for these new newsrooms.
Then again, there's a part of me that wants to establish an over/under on time to split out a business unit to "capitalize on the unique online opportunities the merged newsroom has been missing." Apples to oranges, but we were digging on that AOL/TimeWarner merger once upon a time too.