Apparently there is a time for everything, and the time has come for the online and print newsrooms of the New York Times to merge, according to a joint memo sent to the Times newsroom by Editor Bill Keller and senior VP of digital operations Martin Nisenholtz (via paidcontent). According to the memo, posted on Poynter by Romenesko, "all of us appreciate that one of the biggest long-term challenges facing our craft is to invent a digital journalism and new services for our readers that both live up to our high standards and help carry the cost of a great news-gathering organization."

The ambitious move is intended to "diminish and eventually eliminate the difference between newspaper journalists and web journalists - to reorganize our structures and our minds."

The memo makes reference to "a burgeoning video unit that is eager to be a larger presence on the website, at a time when most users of Nytimes.com have graduated to the kind of high-speed delivery that makes video appealing."

Initially, the memo explains, separation was necessary to give the digital operation room "to flourish, to experiment, to move at its own quick rhythm and focus on the competitive new digital world," according to the memo.

"The digital news operation is now grown up and strong, ready to enlarge its ambitions. The reporting and editing staff at the original newsroom is much more at ease with the Web, more eager to embrace it."