Print supplements enrich online publications

Newspapers! (Wikimedia Commons: SusanLesch)

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.

“NewsBeast” fires parts of editorial board

Tina Brown, caught off-guard. (Flickr Creative Commons: Haddad Media)

Newsweek/Daily Beast editor-in-chief Tina Brown announced Thursday that she’ll be laying off members of the sites’ editorial team.  Newsweek recently went entirely online. According to Jim Romenesko, Brown said “this is a very difficult day, and one that we approach with enormous regret.”  Romenesko also links to a piece about some of the editorial staff quitting in light of the layoffs.

On the flip side, journalists at The National in Abu Dhabi have launched a Facebook campaign to get their boss fired.  Journalists keep finding new ways to use social media!