Newspapers! (Wikimedia Commons: SusanLesch)
Ann Friedman at Columbia Journalism Review urges us to turn all death-of-print conversations into ones about process, since, she says, print is not dead but has just lost its primacy. She points to a recent piece in Flavorwire that praises “the rise of the artisanal magazine,” a sort of ode to the ability of certain publishers to keep an audience with print mags that have an aesthetic quality to them.
Friedman claims that web-only publications hold readers less strongly than those that manage to blend print and digital content. The teen magazine Rookie, for example, released a print collector’s item component to diehard readers.
Perhaps this conclusion will transcend the nostalgia for print and the simpleton takedowns of online journalism from the less-informed.
About Michael Juliani
As the editor and co-owner of an online-only news publication, I see it a different way. Now that we can distribute news without killing trees and burning fossil fuel – it’s irresponsible to continue to use those natural resources. Instead of even spending a cent to try to prop up print publications (currently there are desperate attempts everywhere, such as giant bundles of “free” papers left everywhere in hopes it can be counted as “circulation” to salvage ad deals), we should be intensely discussing how to be certain that electronic news-reading is accessible to absolutely everyone, all ages (I’m 53, by the way, and have long had no interest in reading or writing via the paper medium any longer), all economic levels.