I once received a call for my ex-wife on a kitchen telephone I had not used or even seen in months. After searching for this antique through 15 rings, I found it under a stack of old Economist magazines and a sack of kitty litter.

I told the caller that my ex had left for the grocery store five years earlier, and my feeling was she probably wouldn’t be back. I then pondered the odd object I had in my hand.

Landline telephones are the horse-and-buggy of communications, artifacts of a bygone era. Why do we keep the ugly, near-dead plastic relics in our homes or offices?

My mobile phone is almost an appendage, and I suspect that many others feel the same way. Darwin might have foreseen that, if evolution takes its course, eons from now some version of the phone might become built-in human equipment.

As Bob Dylan wrote and sang: “The times they are a-changing.”

When I was an editor for United Press International in the golden days of wire service journalism, the slogan we lived by was, “A deadline every minute.” In today’s warp-speed Internet world, that ‘minute’ has become a millisecond.

I would liken the landline phone to a paperweight, but even those heavy crystal desk ornaments have become anachronisms. Before everyone had air conditioning, we’d just open the window.

The wind would scatter documents, making paperweights useful. Today, not nearly as much.

If you believe the doomsayers, newspapers – the actual printed product – are in danger of joining the paperweight and the desk telephone as mere curios.

The important word in newspaper is “news,” not “paper.”

It can be effectively argued that the days of printed news are numbered.

With modern, interactive, efficient methods of information delivery available, newspapers don’t even serve a decorative purpose.

Detractors have long referred to the printed press as only being suitable for wrapping fish and chips or lining bird cages. Has that fate finally come to pass?

I don’t think so; but I am the ultimate cheerleader.

Journalism has had to change with the times. Newspapers today get much of their revenue from projects not directly related to their core mission of gathering and reporting news. The Kyiv Post has launched several such initiatives: Kyiv Post Conferences, Kyiv Post Commercial Editorial Services and the production of special supplements.

Last year, I gave a speech suggesting that “the sky is not falling.” The Chicken Littles among us have missed the point regarding the future of newspapers. The important word in newspaper is “news,” not “paper,” I said.

Though they proliferate in many countries and are often owned – for various reasons – by oligarchs, the practice of killing trees to print newspapers will eventually end. That is a certainty that doesn’t require the clairvoyance of a latter-day Nostradamus. It will happen when iPads and their cousins are as ubiquitous as the common home and office telephone once were. It will take time, though, particularly in Eastern Europe.

Disseminating news is costly, particularly in print. About 4,000 hours of labor go into producing the Kyiv Post each month. This includes, of course, online editions in English and Ukrainian/Russian. To do the job right requires updating the site 24/7.

In my view, such intellectual output has value. It should carry a price tag – though a small one – so that it can be as painlessly purchased by a student as by a business executive.

In most cases, the Kyiv Post is distributed free, as though it were a common shopping circular, but there is nothing common about our newspaper. It has been the world’s window on this country for nearly two decades.

We have made some progress against the silly practice of subsidizing value. Let’s face it, the advertising model that newspaper have used is as old as newspapers themselves.

That’s why, a few months ago, we started offering corporate subscriptions. They represent a bargain for any company that has at least 25 employees able to read English.

In a near-mystic vision, I launched a few “honesty boxes,” which asked people to voluntarily pay for the paper. It was a psychological experiment to test honesty and value perception: Put Hr 5 into the box, and take a Kyiv Post. You don’t have to give your money. You can just take the paper. Thus far, the ‘steal’ portion of the equation is winning, but I counsel patience.

Having held down my first newspaper job at age 19, I am nostalgic for the good old days”when newspapers made money. It is a challenge.

But if the Kyiv Post can make this new economic model work – paid subscriptions, subsidiary business products, and advertising – the world’s window on Ukraine will remain a vibrant source of independent reporting.

And, believe me, that’s a good thing.

Kyiv Post CEO Michael Willard can be reached at [email protected]