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print is dead
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print is dead
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print is dead
morbid
Dead Bury Dead in Madison Newspaper Massacre
The Capital Times, the 90-year-old daily afternoon newspaper of Madison, Wisconsin, is eliminating its print edition and becoming an online-only publication. While the Times was once a legendary voice of enlightened progressivism, battling Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy and serving as a voice to Madison's notoriously liberal citizenry, the new electronic edition of the paper will mostly be based around a local web portal and entertainment listings, as that's where the ad money is. More than 20 newsroom staffers lost their jobs, with each now-former journalist receiving a profile written, apparently, by one of their laid-off colleagues, in some sort of sick newspaper-shuttering Bataan Death March. [NYT, Shilv.org]
print is dead
News Jobs Being Outsourced to India
You know all those media pundits who say it's no biggie that every time you call a helpline to complain about pretty much any product or service your call gets zapped to India where you get to talk in circles with a person who couldn't care less about your stupid American problems and thinks that calling you by your first name at the end of every sentence will cover up their condescending attitude? Well, they'll be changing their tune in a jiffy. "Local newspaper publisher Newsquest has told prepress staff at some of its titles that their jobs will be outsourced to India." More »
branding
'Atlantic' No Longer Flying Solo Across Internet
The Atlantic is a magazine about news and culture and stuff. It has been continually published for thousands of years—its founding editor was Babylonian ruler Nebuchadnezzar. Now, though, the internet, which has made Americans forget how to read, is killing it. They struck back recently by putting on their cover a woman who is famous for being mentally disturbed, and now they've gone so far as to bring on brand consultants. Folio reports that Atlantic Media hired "an integrated marketing agency to handle its rebranding." They're redesigning the magazine and relaunching the website! Next fall they will "roll out of a full-scale marketing campaign to communicate the brand message." This is "something the Atlantic has never done" because it is a thing that was invented by marketing agencies ten years ago. [The Atlantic]
la times
The future of newspapers? It's like a trippy mural on the side of a VW bus in a bad movie about the '60s. But with a couple more buzzwords and nonsensical statements of purpose! The LA Times, stiff suffering from every single problem a daily newspaper can suffer from, even under new, Sam Zell-approved management, took 25 editors on a staff retreat this weekend "to figure out how to stop the bleeding and regroup as a newsroom for the digital future." When they came back, they had an inspiring memo from editor Russ Stanton and the graphic you see above. Click to enlarge.
This Van Mural Will Save Journalism
The future of newspapers? It's like a trippy mural on the side of a VW bus in a bad movie about the '60s. But with a couple more buzzwords and nonsensical statements of purpose! The LA Times, stiff suffering from every single problem a daily newspaper can suffer from, even under new, Sam Zell-approved management, took 25 editors on a staff retreat this weekend "to figure out how to stop the bleeding and regroup as a newsroom for the digital future." When they came back, they had an inspiring memo from editor Russ Stanton and the graphic you see above. Click to enlarge.
we are all bloggers now
Next on the Chopping Block: Copy-Editing!
The Los Angeles Daily Journal—a legal paper, apparently—has just fired its entire copy desk. Like, all of them. Writers writing their own headlines! And, uh, copy-editing themselves! It sounds positively hellish. Don't the bosses know that reporters can't spell? Or come up with pithy photo captions? [LAObserved]
print is dead
Sam Zell: Still Shouting
Sam Zell is a crazy old man who bought Tribune Company a little while back. Since then, he's laid hundreds off, hired a bunch of nutty radio people, and done a LOT OF SHOUTING. It's refreshing! He says whatever's on his mind! He's irascible! No-nonsense! A breath of fresh air, telling it like it is! And we're fucking sick of it. Here he is shouting about things on NPR. He hasn't turned anything around yet, but he certainly yells a lot! Sam Zell says the YouTube was started in a garage and you don't know your ass from your elbow! Colorful vulgarisms will save journalism! [NPR]
print is dead
Village Voice Continues to Collapse
The owners of wilting alt weekly The Village Voice continue to condemn their staff to the torture of a thousand cuts. Last week, the Voice's overlords at cost-cutting conglomerate The New Times laid off dance critic Deborah Jowitt after she'd served forty years at the paper. Now, an insider tells us that writer Chris Thompson—who relocated his family from San Francisco to take the job—has been let go. The problem, our tipster says, is that Voice editor-in-chief Tony Ortega has most of his hiring decisions dictated to him by his New Times bosses "and then he sulks because he doesn't really like them, and then decides they aren't 'working out.'" More Voice woes after the jump. More »
media
Broke Newspapers Didn't Want to Cover Campaigns Anyway
How on Earth is this Times piece about how it is too expensive for reporters to actually tag along with campaigns not headlined "On This Year's Bus, Fewer Boys (and Girls)" or something along those lines? "The Buzz on the Bus" barely qualifies as one of those Timesian barely qualifying puns. Anyway, it's a bad thing that no newspapers send reporters on the bus (or plane) anymore, because newspapers are dying, but it's also a good thing, because of blogs and the YouTube. Also there is a picture of Mark Halperin playing make-believe reporter and looking cold. [NYT]
print is dead
Newspaper to Self: All is Well! All is Weeellll!!!
In an otherwise humdrum piece on the death of mainframe computers, one print journalist took a moment to assure himself and his colleagues that the Internet was in no way a threat to their profession. "The demise of the old technology is confidently predicted, and indeed it may lose ground to the insurgent, as mainframes did to the personal computer," writes Steve Lohr. "But the old technology or business often finds a sustainable, profitable life. Television, for example, was supposed to kill radio, and movies, for that matter. Cars, trucks and planes spelled the death of railways. A current death-knell forecast is that the Web will kill print media." So that whole issue? Just a bunch of alarmist hoo-ha all along. [NYT]
print is dead
'LAT' to Replace Axed Reporters with J-School Brats?
Tribune CEO Sam Zell's plan to cut 400 to 500 jobs from his newspaper fiefdom—including 150 positions at the Los Angeles Times alone—could be good news for some eager younglings. Rumors are mounting that LAT publisher David Hiller is hot to replace all those costly veteran reporters with J-School kids just hungry and indebted enough to work for scraps. If you've heard anything, kindly hit the tips button. [najp.org]
magazines
Jon Friedman Also Misses 'George'
MarketWatch media guru Jon Friedman wants to know why you kids aren't reading three of his favorite magazines anymore: U.S. News & World Report, The Sporting News, and Fast Company. We want to know whatever happened to Collier's Weekly! And where's our new issue of The American Mercury? [MarketWatch]
things we actually like
'Zines: Not Totally Dead!
Remember zines? They were basically, like... personal, esoteric blogs xeroxed on paper, from way back in the 1980s and 90s. Critical Mass has an obituary of zines today. Cause of death: internet. But they're wrong! Zines are only, like, half-dead. (I even have one! On paper, yes.) There's a handful of people who still make them, similar to vinyl record enthusiasts in their weirdness. The Portland Zine Symposium, which happens every August, is still going strong. After the jump, a list of my favorite, current zines — and where to find them! More »
print is dead
You Can Also Use Newspapers to "Wipe Away Tough Streaks on Glass"
It must truly be the end of print if Real Simple, that charming Time Inc publication about "Life Made Easier," is advertising "10 New Uses for Newspaper." (We hear that they're good to wrap around your feet if you're homeless and sleeping outside!) What are the rest? Hint: did you know that newspapers are actually quite "absorbent, because [newsprint] has to absorb ink"?More »
print is dead
Washington 'Post' Case Study In Doing It Wrong
Alt-weekly crusader and Washington City Paper editor Erik Wemple wrote the definitive story on the battle between traditional newsrooms and their web counterparts, where "definitive" means "extraordinarily long and often forgetting to make a larger point in its various attempts to embarrass the Washington Post." It's still entertaining though, as a case study in precisely how, over and over again, one should not roll out and maintain the web side of a major publication. More »
worst medium ever
'The Simpsons' announces the death of print
Did you watch The Simpsons last night? Probably not, no one really does anymore! But no one really reads newspapers anymore either. Above, Nelson pwns an industry.
Shares of Google fell $11 bucks on the rumor that they were expanding further into print marketing, because, in the words of lostremote's David Johnson, "Wall Street hates print more than it loves Google." Related: Shares in Maoist rebel organizations have skyrocketed on rumors of bomb threats against Nepal newspapers. [lostremote]
The headline "'Adweek' to Expand Digital Offering" actually means "'Adweek' Cutting Back on Print Offering." They're dropping back to 36 issues a year, and probably not changing their name to "Admostweeks." [Adweek]
