Web Leads, Print Pubs Improve Environmental Impact
by Mark Glaser, 11:44AM
If you’ve grown tired of answering the question, “paper or plastic?” you can now consider another nagging environmental question when choosing your news source: “Online or print?”
Environmental critics have decried “dead-tree media” for decades, saying that print publications rely on clear-cutting forests, energy produced to run paper mills, and gasoline used to deliver publications to each doorstep.While print publishers have started to look at recycled paper content and other environmentally friendly practices, the web remains a more eco-friendly choice for information consumers who care about their carbon footprint.
And it’s not just about getting news on the web; people are now getting information on smartphones and other wireless devices, too. In their unpublished research paper, “The Impact of Environmental Issues and Information Technology on the Future of Paper Industry,” Lauri Hetemaki and Majella Clarke of the Finnish Forest Research Institute explain how digital technology could eventually substitute for print:
One of the main trends in the publishing business has recently been the proliferation of media and venues for delivering content. Three interconnected drivers are likely to have an important impact on this process: bandwidth affordability, wireless communication, and the convergence of digital equipment. The rapid increase of broadband services and their declining real prices result in increasing usage of computer-based equipment for the delivery and consumption of media. Wireless communication allows people to break free from the tether of the network, and significantly increases the portability of digital media platforms. The convergence of technologies implies that single-function analog devices are giving way to multi-function digital devices.
The paper goes on to mention the environmental problems of technology and electronics hardware, often becoming obsolete quickly and containing toxic chemicals. Still, the amount of energy and environmental impact of one session on a computer pales in comparison to the impact of reading a printed newspaper or magazine. Frank Locantore is director of the Magazine Paper Project at the non-profit Co-op America. The aim of the project is to help magazines start using more recycled paper content.
Frank Locantore
“With the web we’re talking about energy use more than anything else,” he said. “When you talk about magazines and newspapers, you’re talking about forests, as well as energy and water use and even social conflict from where the forest fiber is being sourced. I can’t imagine magazine readership and production having less impact than the web.”
While that might be true in general, web and computer usage does have its environmental impact with the electricity and power used for server farms. And conversely, print publishers have started to pay attention to environmental concerns by pushing recycling programs as well as using recycled fiber in their publications.
Mixed Record for Newspapers
Recycling newspapers has become an ingrained habit for Americans over the past couple decades. Publishers have increased their use of recycled paper in newspapers and have become more cognizant of the impact of discarded newspapers on the local communities they serve.
In two separate investigative reports, specific newspapers detailed the environmental impact they were having. The Sacramento Bee’s State of Denial report from 2003 includes a section detailing how California forests had been preserved but newspaper publishers were taking paper stripped from the Canadian boreal forests. And the Montreal Gazette literally gave itself a Green Report Card , figuring its own ecological footprint with an in-depth package. The Gazette noted that it had taken some environmentally friendly steps by using 20% recycled paper content in its newspapers, but that the dream of a paperless office was far from coming true.
Tyson Miller, director of the Green Press Initiative , has helped book publishers switch to recycled paper, and is planning to start doing the same thing to the newspaper industry. He told me there were already a lot of good signs that newspapers were ahead of books and magazines — but there was still a long way to go.
“Newsprint consumption is 9.2 million tons per year, and the average amount of that which is recycled material is 32%, so about 6 million tons of virgin fiber is used to make U.S. newsprint per year,” he said. “That’s more virgin fiber than the books, magazine and catalog business combined. So even though they use a lot more recycled content, and print circulation is dropping, the industry as a whole uses a lot of paper. The good news is that the industry has a fairly high recycled fiber use rate.”
The Newspaper Association of America found that 69% of newspapers in the U.S. were recovered and recycled in 2005, up from about 57% in 1995. The NAA has been touting digital distribution of news articles and the rise of newspaper website readership for the past few years, though it hasn’t made it an environmental issue. David Johnson, administrator of ScrippsNews.com, wrote an Earth Day-related blog post detailing the eco-friendly steps the newspaper industry was taking. He told me newspapers had lowered the amount of newsprint used in each paper — though that was more for cost-cutting than anything else.
“I know at Scripps [environmental issues are] a big deal,” Johnson said. “I just got out of a newspaper technology directors meeting a couple weeks ago, and we’re looking for every way we can to increase profit and one of those ways is recycling. We’re recycling everything that we’re not distributing…There are a few boutique presses here in DC that say they only do recycled newsprint and that’s their marketing advantage. The newspapers will find that as a marketable peg they can get onto as eco-friendly.”
When I was visiting London last year, I was amazed at all the discarded free Metro newspapers in the subway trains. The trend toward free commuter newspapers is not one that has captured the hearts of environmentalists. Quite the contrary. London-based photographer Justin Canning started the website Project Freesheet to ask people to photograph the waste created by free newspapers, and to pressure publishers to promote recycling and pay for the garbage they are creating.
Justin Canning
“Will people change the way they read because they have concerns for the environment?” Canning said via email. “I’m not sure because I don’t think people are yet 100% comfortable about sitting in front of screens to read for hours. Papers and books still offer the ability to ‘disappear’ (into the garden, on the beach, on the train, etc.) and read for amounts of time, without the need to worry about support for your device…So I think the onus still rests on the producers of printed matter to take responsibility for their product and produce it in a way that is positive for our environment.”
Magazines Still Lagging
The magazine industry has been slower to embrace recycled paper in their publications, citing a higher cost and lower quality of the paper. As paper production changes and recycling becomes more widespread, those arguments will start to lose their strength — especially if readers start asking for more eco-friendly publications.
After the Al Gore documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” magazine publishers are starting to pay more attention to environmental issues, at least in their editorial outlook. The Week magazine decided to do one online-only issue with a green theme around Earth Day this year. Elle and Vanity Fair both had special green issues as well, and WashingtonPost.Newsweek.Interactive launched the online-only enviro-women’s pub, Sprig .
Yet, there’s a hint of hypocrisy in some of these nods toward the green revolution. Vanity Fair uses absolutely no recycled paper in its issues, and Elle has only used recycled paper in its two green issues over the past couple years.
“It drives me batty,” said Frank Locantore of the Magazine Paper Project. “It’s like a Ford Escalade SUV with a ‘Stop Global Warming’ bumper sticker. Vanity Fair and Elle make such a hullabaloo with their Green Issue, and the most impactful thing that they could do for the environment is to switch to recycled paper, and Shape [magazine] does that for every issue.”
Locantore says that only about 100 magazines out of 18,000 titles in print use some recycled paper content or use responsibly sourced virgin fiber. (His group includes a list of these titles on a special Heroes page .) He is starting to see more interest from publishers to use recycled paper, and is hoping to convince six high-profile magazines to set examples by using some recycled paper content in their publications. He ticks off the enivoronmental benefits if magazines would switch from 0% recycled content in their publications to 30% recycled: 16% less solid waste; 10% less waste water; 13% less greenhouse gases; and 10% less total energy expended in production.
There are a lot of other areas that magazines could help out the environment beyond just using recycled stock paper. Samir Mr. Magazine Husni, chair of the journalism department at the University of Mississippi, notes that publishers could do a much better job of printing up the right number of copies instead of overshooting.
“The newspaper and magazine industry must find ways to trim the waste, and that’s why they have to be more clever about delivering relevant information to relevant audiences,” he said. “We can’t afford to have publishers who say, ‘I’m going to print 1 million copies and will see who’s going to buy them.’ And we know that only 3 out of 10 copies will be sold, and 700,000 will go to waste. We have to be more laser-targeted in our publishing instead of a shotgun approach. The technology will help us laser target our publishing, our printing.”
E-Ink to the Rescue?
Despite the obvious ecological problems with ink on paper, the Internet isn’t exactly solar-powered and eats up plenty of energy. An Ask.com executive told Wired Magazine last fall that the five leading search engines have about 2 million servers for a total of 600 megawatts of power consumption. When you add in hard drive power and air conditioning, the total energy usage for search engines hits 5 gigawatts — enough to power Las Vegas on a hot day, according to the article.
Journalist/blogger Nicholas Carr noted that 4,000 servers power the virtual world Second Life, and that there are an average of 10,000 to 15,000 avatars living there. He wanted to know if Second Life citizens ended up using up more energy than real-life people and found that the average avatar uses up 1,752 kilowatt hours per year — about the same amount used by the average Brazilian. “Avatars aren’t quite as intangible as they seem,” he concluded. “They don’t have bodies, but they do leave footprints.”
So perhaps a more perfect ecological solution for getting news and information would be on low- or solar-powered e-readers that were cheap, flexible and reusable.
Sony Reader with E-Ink
“I think with the increased use of handheld electronic devices, the consumption of traditional printed media is already being affected,” Project Freesheet’s Canning said. “But we’ll always have our favorites that we will want to buy hard copies of, so the book/magazine/paper format will not fall out of demand for a long time — or until someone invents a device that can open up to the size of a magazine and fold down to the size of your present mobile phone. That is why we have to encourage the publishing industry to look at the products they produce and to ask them if they can really justify polluting the planet for the next 50 years with a product that is showing itself to be extremely bad news for the environment.”
The researchers from the Finnish Forest Research Institute believe that e-readers could eventually become a real substitute for printed material — unlike the desktop computer, which doesn’t lend itself to lengthy readings.
“When consumers see that paper-like displays or smart paper are as easy to use and as good quality as print media, and that they come at mass-market prices, then the environmental perspective (green purchasing) becomes much more relevant,” they write. “The further we look to the future, the more likely the relationship between print and digital media is to evolve from that of a complementary preference, to that of substitute…The more consumers accept electronic media as a substitute for printed media, the easier it is for politicians and environmental authorities to regulate media that are environmentally more damaging.”
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Old Media turns Combative against New Media
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Heard on the Web" Media Intelligence: Courtesy of BoSacks and The Precision Media Group BoSacks on the WebAmerica's Oldest e-newsletter est.1993 The BoSacks Blog Spot Click here to forward this email ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
| "There are not enough Indians in the world to defeat the Seventh Cavalry." George Armstrong Custer Old media turns combative against new media | |
| Responses to all Articles and Bo-Rants are greatly encouraged and may be included in " BoSacks Readers Speak Out" "Heard on the Web" Media Intelligence: Courtesy of The Precision Media Group.
| |
| Publishing Links and News ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
| Contact Information ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ email: bosacks@aol.com phone: 518-329-7994 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| ||||
Bill Gates: Reading to Go 'Completely Online'
| |||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
Precision Media Group | PO Box 53 | Copake | NY | 12516 |
BoSacks Speaks Out: Paid Circ Is What Matters says Ad Chief to Publishers
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Heard on the Web" Media Intelligence: Courtesy of BoSacks and The Precision Media Group BoSacks on the WebAmerica's Oldest e-newsletter est.1993 The BoSacks Blog Spot Click here to forward this email ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
| BoSacks Speaks Out: Paid Circ Is What Matters Well, here you have it. Right out of the very mouths that feeds us. Please read this article and think about our pursuit of metric changes. And while you're mulling it over . . . I have these two statements for you from the article below: " . . . our business decisions, like yours, are driven by facts and results," Publishers of newspapers and magazines have tried to shift advertisers' focus to overall audience from the established metric, paying subscribers and newsstand buyers. Get that? . . . The advertisers want facts and results . . They want paying buyers and paid subscribers . . . not fluff, not subterfuge, and surely not smoke and mirrors. So it seems that we need to look deeply within ourselves and our current business models to deliver what is increasingly becoming the demand and mantra of advertisers and media buyers: Accountability -30- "Bush, Congress, the mayor - each of them are symptoms of a bigger problem, that we don't have accountability for disasters or challenges of this scale. That's all the public wants in trying times - accountability." Michael Chertoff Macy's Ad Chief to Newspapers: Paid Circ Is What Matters --------------------------------------------------- | |
| Responses to all Articles and Bo-Rants are greatly encouraged and may be included in " BoSacks Readers Speak Out" "Heard on the Web" Media Intelligence: Courtesy of The Precision Media Group.
| |
| Publishing Links and News ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
| Contact Information ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ email: bosacks@aol.com phone: 518-329-7994 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| ||||
New York mag is to journalism what The Eagles were to rock
Adam's Apple
Adam Moss is America's most celebrated editor. So why is New York magazine such a bore?
By John Cook
http://www.radaronline.com/features/2007/05/adam_moss_new_york_magazine_1.php
ADULT CONTEMPORARY Much like The Eagles, New York magazine is solid, respectable, and often lameThe most successful album in the history of recorded music is a greatest hits compilation by The Eagles. It has been purchased 29 million times since its release in 1976. This fact has long been a cause of consternation to people who care about rock music. It's not so much that The Eagles were an execrable band (which they were), or that they outsold worthier competitors like Michael Jackson or Led Zeppelin (which they did). It's that The Eagles should have been the best rock band ever, but instead opted to remain a slick and empty confection. All the elements were there—exquisite harmonies, some truly beautiful songs, gifted musicians—but somehow the expensive ingredients all collapsed into a flaccid soufflé of radio-ready pabulum. Notwithstanding their success, The Eagles are now generally remembered as either the worst good band or the best awful band of their era.
Why can't I remember anything I've read in 'New York' over the past two years? Because all too often it's a magazine without elbows—or a spine, or a pulse.Which brings us to New York magazine, the title that swept the National Magazine Awards last Tuesday in five categories, including general excellence and design. Despite all its recent accolades, New York is to journalism what The Eagles were to rock: a technically flawless assemblage of expertly crafted elements that look, on paper (as it were), as though they ought to translate into a superb magazine, and yet somehow still manage to suck.
Superficially, of course, there is much in New York to justify its current ascendancy, which is now so clearly entrenched that former Newsweek chief Mark Whitaker joked at the NMA ceremony that editor Adam Moss had replaced the New Yorker's David Remnick in the top slot of the city's rigidly delineated media hierarchy. Moss, who took charge of the magazine three years ago after a long stint at the New York Times Magazine, has proven himself a brilliant technician. The New York that he redesigned is a precision-machined and conceptually refined Platonic ideal of magazine-ness.
Each issue is beautifully laid out, from the cool, sepia-toned headshots illustrating Intelligencer to the playful schematics and illustrated sidebars in the feature well to the arresting product shots that open the Strategist (yeah, the antique doorknobs are $200, but they still look great) to the Boy Scout Handbook-style instructions on basic culinary tasks in the food section. With the exception of Jim Cramer, the writing is generally crisp and felicitous, and the editorial voice of the magazine—as expressed in coverlines, headlines, captions, etc.—is, while relentlessly white and privileged, clever enough.
So why can't I remember anything I've read in New York over the past two years? Because all too often it's a magazine without elbows—or for that matter, a spine, balls, or a pulse. Good stories are pointy things that lodge in the brain. But to open New York is to sluice the same robotically calibrated sensibility over the same well-worn neural pathways week after week. The collective judgment of the NMA panel notwithstanding, New York is frosty, astringent, soulless, and so risk-averse as to leave the reader desperate for the dressed-up tabloid stories of its glory days. Reading it is like eating a bowl of ice shavings prepared by Jean-George Vongerichten. (Full disclosure: I once met with Moss to discuss potential employment at New York, I've pitched its editors and been rejected, the editor in chief of Radar used to work there, and my wife has written in its pages.)
MOSS GATHERING The editor collects all five of his 2007 National Magazine AwardsWas anyone surprised, for instance, by anything that appeared in April's "Sex and Love" issue? That Katie Roiphe, whose career rests on her ability to spin her own sexual experiences into what she takes to be transgressively counterintuitive polemic, would reveal that going through a divorce actually makes one "jangly" and "productive" and that the kid will turn out just fine? That the "sexually frustrated dad" who submitted a "sex diary" didn't screw his wife while she was menstruating, or that the gay 38-year-old magazine editor's diary included a sexual dream about a coastal estate in Maine that he termed "a real-estate fantasy"? (The term "real-estate porn" had heretofore been deployed as a metaphor to describe New York's voyeuristic and obsessive approach to the beat; now it has become a reality. Also, expect an "Is the coast of Maine the new Hamptons?" story this summer). Did anyone even blink when Tipping Point author Malcolm Gladwell's head popped up in the background of a photo (on page 51—check for yourself) taken at Ariel Levy and Amy Norquist's wedding that accompanied Levy's piece on the fact that lesbians now marry, and that their marriage ceremonies tend to differ in substantive ways from the marriage ceremonies of heterosexual couples?
The Mossian feature must be about something other than what it appears to be about—it must say something meaningful about The Way We Live Now.You can't always see it, but Gladwell's head is tucked away somewhere, Waldo-like, in each page of New York. Though he writes for the the New Yorker's momentarily deposed David Remnick, Gladwell is a principal practitioner of the style of maddening posturing that has increasingly infected New York's stories. The magazine earned its stripes in the '60s by pioneering a new genre of rollicking, narrative-driven, first-person journalism. But New York, in its current version seems constitutionally incapable of telling a good story. The Mossian feature must be, as per Gladwell, about something other than what it appears to be about—it must say something meaningful about The Way We Live Now, to borrow a preposterously pretentious phrase that Moss bestowed on the front-of-the-book section of the New York Times Magazine during his tenure there. So Adam Sternbergh's account of the development of the High Line in last week's issue is not actually about the development of the High Line—which would have been sufficient. It's actually a treatise about how New York commodifies its own self-generated nostalgia, or some such.
Likewise, David Amsden's profile of Mets third baseman David Wright isn't really about David Wright but about his "mechanized" persona of "pure packaged Americana," as telegraphed in the subheadline of the article: "David Wright is the perfect New York sports star—almost too perfect." And Steve Fishman's 2005 profile of Ilario Pantano, the Marine lieutenant charged with murdering two Iraqis, was as much about how a hunky Horace Mann grad and Goldman Sachs trader wound up doing something so vulgar as serving in Iraq as it was about his case.
Of course, despite the magazine's meta-version to narrative stories, good features frequently slip through the cracks. While New York has access to some of the finest magazine writers in the country, their efforts are undercut by a prim editorial voice that is more concerned with analyzing what it all means than with who did what and why. In its high-minded effort to avoid anything resembling gossip or impudence, the magazine regularly manages to turn even the most juicy tales of power, sex, and violence into uptight, cerebral dispatches that seem more suited to the New Republic than New York. After Ron Perelman's public, bilious split with Ellen Barkin, featured on a March 2006 cover, New York couldn't resist the impulse to elevate the irresistible tabloid tale into a dreary sociological exegesis, politely headlined "Divorce: How the Rich Call it Quits."
Moss's devotion to this overthought, pre-packaged style, says a former colleague, is so complete that writers can seem like obstructions to his grand designs. "Adam would talk about the need to 'writer-proof' stories," the source said. "Define the story in such a way that the writer won't ruin it for us."
That's the attitude of an editor who is so intolerant of risk that he views the very engines of his magazine as potential saboteurs. New York takes no chances, climbs out on no limbs, plants no flags. It is the only magazine, with the possible exception of Christianity Today, in which you will find photographs of clothed (!) virgins illustrating an issue purportedly devoted to sex, to cite just one missed opportunity for mixing it up.
Tina Brown, the trailblazing editor of Vanity Fair, the New Yorker, and Talk, certainly has her own well-chronicled faults as a magazine editor, but she famously remarked—correctly—that "an act of bad taste in every magazine is very important on a regular basis," an axiom that also explains the difference between Robert Plant and Don Henley. One thing that Moss's New York cannot be accused of is bad taste. It is never exercised, never angry, rarely funny, and never, ever profane. According to New York lore, founding editor Clay Felker's vision for the magazine amounted to something along the lines of a more lively, energetic, crass—in a word, Jewish—version of the New Yorker, which at the time was a paragon of WASPy propriety. In 1965, when New York was still a Sunday supplement to the New York Herald Tribune, Felker assigned Tom Wolfe a hit piece on New Yorker editor William Shawn that attacked the magazine as "the land of the walking dead" and tossed in several transparent and mocking falsehoods, including an assertion that Shawn was one of the intended victims of Leopold and Loeb, for good measure. That biting, obnoxious ethic is long gone, and Moss's New York is much closer in spirit to Shawn's New Yorker: Timid, bloodless, and respectable.
New York's most egregious sin is that it's aimed at such a narrow sliver of the city. It's become the bible of the ultra-entitled New Yorker, the kind of person who would actually spend $200 on a doorknob described in the magazine as a bargain.New York's most egregious sin is that it's aimed at such a narrow sliver of the city. It's become the bible of the ultra-entitled New Yorker, the kind of person who would actually spend $200 on a doorknob described in the magazine as a bargain. The Plate-U coffee table featured in the Strategist a few weeks ago, described with words "thriftiness can be elegant," can be had for $1,800, or the balance of a month's salary after taxes for a family that earns New York's median household income of $43,393. There's nothing wrong, of course, with pitching a magazine at ludicrously wealthy people desperately trying to fill the holes in their lives with grapefruit-and-vodka-pedicures. But New York is, after all, a city and not a colony of hedge-fund managers. A magazine that purports to capture the life of a teeming and mixed-up metropolis ought to at least occasionally acknowledge the fact that very few people who live there are served by a chart detailing the caloric content of a $250 nine-course tasting menu at Per Se.
Felker's New York was in many ways just as unapologetically elitist as Moss's, but, in addition to throwing in the occasional ghetto story as a sop to liberal guilt, its coverage of New York's social, political, and economic elites was muscular and often daring. "Clay's chronicles of life in the city were not about the remoteness of power and status and prestige but about the immediacy of those things, even the intimacy, and the excitement, the buzz, of power gained and power lost," wrote Michael Wolff in New York on the occasion of the magazine's 35th birthday. "By bringing the large and powerful down to size, you could, of course, begin to see yourself in those roles—and shortly we were all role-playing." Where Felker saw a barfight, Moss sees a playground.
I noticed a curious thing about the "Sex and Love" issue that helps explain much of what ails New York: The central characters—not just the writers, but the people being written about—were all people likely to run into one another at a book party. The sex diaries featured both a publishing assistant and a magazine editor. Katie Roiphe, a New York City writer, wrote about her own life. Ariel Levy, a celebrated New York writer—and occasional Radar contributor—wrote about her wedding. Caroline Leavitt, a New Jersey (close enough) writer, wrote about the break-up of her marriage. These are people who are ostensibly supposed to take journalism's reflective surfaces and turn them outward to the world. But Moss asked his writers to turn them inward.
Adam Moss is America's most celebrated editor. So why is New York magazine such a bore?
By John Cook
http://www.radaronline.com/features/2007/05/adam_moss_new_york_magazine_1.php
ADULT CONTEMPORARY Much like The Eagles, New York magazine is solid, respectable, and often lameThe most successful album in the history of recorded music is a greatest hits compilation by The Eagles. It has been purchased 29 million times since its release in 1976. This fact has long been a cause of consternation to people who care about rock music. It's not so much that The Eagles were an execrable band (which they were), or that they outsold worthier competitors like Michael Jackson or Led Zeppelin (which they did). It's that The Eagles should have been the best rock band ever, but instead opted to remain a slick and empty confection. All the elements were there—exquisite harmonies, some truly beautiful songs, gifted musicians—but somehow the expensive ingredients all collapsed into a flaccid soufflé of radio-ready pabulum. Notwithstanding their success, The Eagles are now generally remembered as either the worst good band or the best awful band of their era.
Why can't I remember anything I've read in 'New York' over the past two years? Because all too often it's a magazine without elbows—or a spine, or a pulse.Which brings us to New York magazine, the title that swept the National Magazine Awards last Tuesday in five categories, including general excellence and design. Despite all its recent accolades, New York is to journalism what The Eagles were to rock: a technically flawless assemblage of expertly crafted elements that look, on paper (as it were), as though they ought to translate into a superb magazine, and yet somehow still manage to suck.
Superficially, of course, there is much in New York to justify its current ascendancy, which is now so clearly entrenched that former Newsweek chief Mark Whitaker joked at the NMA ceremony that editor Adam Moss had replaced the New Yorker's David Remnick in the top slot of the city's rigidly delineated media hierarchy. Moss, who took charge of the magazine three years ago after a long stint at the New York Times Magazine, has proven himself a brilliant technician. The New York that he redesigned is a precision-machined and conceptually refined Platonic ideal of magazine-ness.
Each issue is beautifully laid out, from the cool, sepia-toned headshots illustrating Intelligencer to the playful schematics and illustrated sidebars in the feature well to the arresting product shots that open the Strategist (yeah, the antique doorknobs are $200, but they still look great) to the Boy Scout Handbook-style instructions on basic culinary tasks in the food section. With the exception of Jim Cramer, the writing is generally crisp and felicitous, and the editorial voice of the magazine—as expressed in coverlines, headlines, captions, etc.—is, while relentlessly white and privileged, clever enough.
So why can't I remember anything I've read in New York over the past two years? Because all too often it's a magazine without elbows—or for that matter, a spine, balls, or a pulse. Good stories are pointy things that lodge in the brain. But to open New York is to sluice the same robotically calibrated sensibility over the same well-worn neural pathways week after week. The collective judgment of the NMA panel notwithstanding, New York is frosty, astringent, soulless, and so risk-averse as to leave the reader desperate for the dressed-up tabloid stories of its glory days. Reading it is like eating a bowl of ice shavings prepared by Jean-George Vongerichten. (Full disclosure: I once met with Moss to discuss potential employment at New York, I've pitched its editors and been rejected, the editor in chief of Radar used to work there, and my wife has written in its pages.)
MOSS GATHERING The editor collects all five of his 2007 National Magazine AwardsWas anyone surprised, for instance, by anything that appeared in April's "Sex and Love" issue? That Katie Roiphe, whose career rests on her ability to spin her own sexual experiences into what she takes to be transgressively counterintuitive polemic, would reveal that going through a divorce actually makes one "jangly" and "productive" and that the kid will turn out just fine? That the "sexually frustrated dad" who submitted a "sex diary" didn't screw his wife while she was menstruating, or that the gay 38-year-old magazine editor's diary included a sexual dream about a coastal estate in Maine that he termed "a real-estate fantasy"? (The term "real-estate porn" had heretofore been deployed as a metaphor to describe New York's voyeuristic and obsessive approach to the beat; now it has become a reality. Also, expect an "Is the coast of Maine the new Hamptons?" story this summer). Did anyone even blink when Tipping Point author Malcolm Gladwell's head popped up in the background of a photo (on page 51—check for yourself) taken at Ariel Levy and Amy Norquist's wedding that accompanied Levy's piece on the fact that lesbians now marry, and that their marriage ceremonies tend to differ in substantive ways from the marriage ceremonies of heterosexual couples?
The Mossian feature must be about something other than what it appears to be about—it must say something meaningful about The Way We Live Now.You can't always see it, but Gladwell's head is tucked away somewhere, Waldo-like, in each page of New York. Though he writes for the the New Yorker's momentarily deposed David Remnick, Gladwell is a principal practitioner of the style of maddening posturing that has increasingly infected New York's stories. The magazine earned its stripes in the '60s by pioneering a new genre of rollicking, narrative-driven, first-person journalism. But New York, in its current version seems constitutionally incapable of telling a good story. The Mossian feature must be, as per Gladwell, about something other than what it appears to be about—it must say something meaningful about The Way We Live Now, to borrow a preposterously pretentious phrase that Moss bestowed on the front-of-the-book section of the New York Times Magazine during his tenure there. So Adam Sternbergh's account of the development of the High Line in last week's issue is not actually about the development of the High Line—which would have been sufficient. It's actually a treatise about how New York commodifies its own self-generated nostalgia, or some such.
Likewise, David Amsden's profile of Mets third baseman David Wright isn't really about David Wright but about his "mechanized" persona of "pure packaged Americana," as telegraphed in the subheadline of the article: "David Wright is the perfect New York sports star—almost too perfect." And Steve Fishman's 2005 profile of Ilario Pantano, the Marine lieutenant charged with murdering two Iraqis, was as much about how a hunky Horace Mann grad and Goldman Sachs trader wound up doing something so vulgar as serving in Iraq as it was about his case.
Of course, despite the magazine's meta-version to narrative stories, good features frequently slip through the cracks. While New York has access to some of the finest magazine writers in the country, their efforts are undercut by a prim editorial voice that is more concerned with analyzing what it all means than with who did what and why. In its high-minded effort to avoid anything resembling gossip or impudence, the magazine regularly manages to turn even the most juicy tales of power, sex, and violence into uptight, cerebral dispatches that seem more suited to the New Republic than New York. After Ron Perelman's public, bilious split with Ellen Barkin, featured on a March 2006 cover, New York couldn't resist the impulse to elevate the irresistible tabloid tale into a dreary sociological exegesis, politely headlined "Divorce: How the Rich Call it Quits."
Moss's devotion to this overthought, pre-packaged style, says a former colleague, is so complete that writers can seem like obstructions to his grand designs. "Adam would talk about the need to 'writer-proof' stories," the source said. "Define the story in such a way that the writer won't ruin it for us."
That's the attitude of an editor who is so intolerant of risk that he views the very engines of his magazine as potential saboteurs. New York takes no chances, climbs out on no limbs, plants no flags. It is the only magazine, with the possible exception of Christianity Today, in which you will find photographs of clothed (!) virgins illustrating an issue purportedly devoted to sex, to cite just one missed opportunity for mixing it up.
Tina Brown, the trailblazing editor of Vanity Fair, the New Yorker, and Talk, certainly has her own well-chronicled faults as a magazine editor, but she famously remarked—correctly—that "an act of bad taste in every magazine is very important on a regular basis," an axiom that also explains the difference between Robert Plant and Don Henley. One thing that Moss's New York cannot be accused of is bad taste. It is never exercised, never angry, rarely funny, and never, ever profane. According to New York lore, founding editor Clay Felker's vision for the magazine amounted to something along the lines of a more lively, energetic, crass—in a word, Jewish—version of the New Yorker, which at the time was a paragon of WASPy propriety. In 1965, when New York was still a Sunday supplement to the New York Herald Tribune, Felker assigned Tom Wolfe a hit piece on New Yorker editor William Shawn that attacked the magazine as "the land of the walking dead" and tossed in several transparent and mocking falsehoods, including an assertion that Shawn was one of the intended victims of Leopold and Loeb, for good measure. That biting, obnoxious ethic is long gone, and Moss's New York is much closer in spirit to Shawn's New Yorker: Timid, bloodless, and respectable.
New York's most egregious sin is that it's aimed at such a narrow sliver of the city. It's become the bible of the ultra-entitled New Yorker, the kind of person who would actually spend $200 on a doorknob described in the magazine as a bargain.New York's most egregious sin is that it's aimed at such a narrow sliver of the city. It's become the bible of the ultra-entitled New Yorker, the kind of person who would actually spend $200 on a doorknob described in the magazine as a bargain. The Plate-U coffee table featured in the Strategist a few weeks ago, described with words "thriftiness can be elegant," can be had for $1,800, or the balance of a month's salary after taxes for a family that earns New York's median household income of $43,393. There's nothing wrong, of course, with pitching a magazine at ludicrously wealthy people desperately trying to fill the holes in their lives with grapefruit-and-vodka-pedicures. But New York is, after all, a city and not a colony of hedge-fund managers. A magazine that purports to capture the life of a teeming and mixed-up metropolis ought to at least occasionally acknowledge the fact that very few people who live there are served by a chart detailing the caloric content of a $250 nine-course tasting menu at Per Se.
Felker's New York was in many ways just as unapologetically elitist as Moss's, but, in addition to throwing in the occasional ghetto story as a sop to liberal guilt, its coverage of New York's social, political, and economic elites was muscular and often daring. "Clay's chronicles of life in the city were not about the remoteness of power and status and prestige but about the immediacy of those things, even the intimacy, and the excitement, the buzz, of power gained and power lost," wrote Michael Wolff in New York on the occasion of the magazine's 35th birthday. "By bringing the large and powerful down to size, you could, of course, begin to see yourself in those roles—and shortly we were all role-playing." Where Felker saw a barfight, Moss sees a playground.
I noticed a curious thing about the "Sex and Love" issue that helps explain much of what ails New York: The central characters—not just the writers, but the people being written about—were all people likely to run into one another at a book party. The sex diaries featured both a publishing assistant and a magazine editor. Katie Roiphe, a New York City writer, wrote about her own life. Ariel Levy, a celebrated New York writer—and occasional Radar contributor—wrote about her wedding. Caroline Leavitt, a New Jersey (close enough) writer, wrote about the break-up of her marriage. These are people who are ostensibly supposed to take journalism's reflective surfaces and turn them outward to the world. But Moss asked his writers to turn them inward.
Macy's to Publishers: Engage Audiences
Macy's to Newspapers: Engage Audiences
Tuesday May 8, 1:31 pm ET
By Seth Sutel, AP Business Writer
Macy's Chief Marketing Officer Delivers Tough Love Speech to Newspapers
NEW YORK (AP) -- The chief marketing officer of Macy's department stores delivered tough talk to the newspaper industry Tuesday, telling a publishing conference why her company is moving ad dollars to other media such as TV, magazines and the Internet.
Anne MacDonald, a self-proclaimed newspaper "junkie" who keeps stacks of them around her home and reads several each day, told publishers they need to do more to win back business from Macy's, which is part of Federated Department Stores Inc.
With Macy's now a national brand following Federated's acquisition of May Department Stores, the chain is turning increasingly to media with a national reach such as fashion magazines, television and Web sites, she said.
Newspapers are still effective at delivering local messages, she said, but need to do more to engage Macy's shoppers -- primarily women aged 18-54.
"In order for your newspapers to be winning our advertising dollars, you need to be winning in the marketplace, and that's not currently the case," MacDonald said in a keynote talk at the conference held by the Newspaper Association of America.
Analysts and investors have long been concerned about the decline in ad spending by department stores, and in particular Macy's, as they become national brands and less likely to use local media such as newspapers. Also, newspapers have been struggling with declining circulation and ad dollars as more people get their news online.
Among MacDonald's several suggestions for change was for newspapers to collaborate more effectively across regions and with each other in selling advertising, which would allow national companies such as Macy's to reach a broader audience.
As it is, individual ad buyers for Macy's stores deal with individual newspapers on advertising plans. "That's not productive for either of us," MacDonald said.
She pointed to her own industry, department stores, which had to undergo significant changes over the past several years to adapt to competition from online stores, television shopping channels, big box retailers and discounting clubs.
Macy's, she said, is seeking to establish itself as a more upscale, fashionable brand and drive foot traffic even when there aren't promotions, and is still trying to understand how customers are changing the ways they shop. "Like us, you must change the way you think," she said.
MacDonald pointed to the example of her two favorite sections of her hometown newspaper, The New York Times. Every week she pulls out the science and dining sections and reads them first.
If the Times were to somehow deliver those sections to her wrapped on the outside, she would be impressed that the publisher had learned something about her reading habits, she said.
She also issued a plea to publishers to collaborate with advertisers on research to better understand the rapidly evolving habits of their customers. The idea was immediately embraced by Jack Sweeney, publisher of the Houston Chronicle, who asked MacDonald how to find out what questions they needed answered.
Mark Contreras, senior vice president for newspapers at E.W. Scripps Co., called MacDonald's remarks a "very thoughtful call to action for newspapers to pay very close attention to. ... We have the wherewithal to meet many of their needs."
Tuesday May 8, 1:31 pm ET
By Seth Sutel, AP Business Writer
Macy's Chief Marketing Officer Delivers Tough Love Speech to Newspapers
NEW YORK (AP) -- The chief marketing officer of Macy's department stores delivered tough talk to the newspaper industry Tuesday, telling a publishing conference why her company is moving ad dollars to other media such as TV, magazines and the Internet.
Anne MacDonald, a self-proclaimed newspaper "junkie" who keeps stacks of them around her home and reads several each day, told publishers they need to do more to win back business from Macy's, which is part of Federated Department Stores Inc.
With Macy's now a national brand following Federated's acquisition of May Department Stores, the chain is turning increasingly to media with a national reach such as fashion magazines, television and Web sites, she said.
Newspapers are still effective at delivering local messages, she said, but need to do more to engage Macy's shoppers -- primarily women aged 18-54.
"In order for your newspapers to be winning our advertising dollars, you need to be winning in the marketplace, and that's not currently the case," MacDonald said in a keynote talk at the conference held by the Newspaper Association of America.
Analysts and investors have long been concerned about the decline in ad spending by department stores, and in particular Macy's, as they become national brands and less likely to use local media such as newspapers. Also, newspapers have been struggling with declining circulation and ad dollars as more people get their news online.
Among MacDonald's several suggestions for change was for newspapers to collaborate more effectively across regions and with each other in selling advertising, which would allow national companies such as Macy's to reach a broader audience.
As it is, individual ad buyers for Macy's stores deal with individual newspapers on advertising plans. "That's not productive for either of us," MacDonald said.
She pointed to her own industry, department stores, which had to undergo significant changes over the past several years to adapt to competition from online stores, television shopping channels, big box retailers and discounting clubs.
Macy's, she said, is seeking to establish itself as a more upscale, fashionable brand and drive foot traffic even when there aren't promotions, and is still trying to understand how customers are changing the ways they shop. "Like us, you must change the way you think," she said.
MacDonald pointed to the example of her two favorite sections of her hometown newspaper, The New York Times. Every week she pulls out the science and dining sections and reads them first.
If the Times were to somehow deliver those sections to her wrapped on the outside, she would be impressed that the publisher had learned something about her reading habits, she said.
She also issued a plea to publishers to collaborate with advertisers on research to better understand the rapidly evolving habits of their customers. The idea was immediately embraced by Jack Sweeney, publisher of the Houston Chronicle, who asked MacDonald how to find out what questions they needed answered.
Mark Contreras, senior vice president for newspapers at E.W. Scripps Co., called MacDonald's remarks a "very thoughtful call to action for newspapers to pay very close attention to. ... We have the wherewithal to meet many of their needs."
Old media turns combative against new media
Old media turns combative against new media
Tue May 8, 2007 7:40PM EDT
By Kenneth Li
LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Leading media executives took a combative tone against Internet companies on Tuesday, suggesting that Big Media increasingly considers new content distributors like Google Inc. to be more foe than friend.
At a panel discussion on the second day of the 56th annual National Cable & Telecommunications Association conference, top executives said talk of the demise of traditional media in the digital age was overblown.
While new distribution technologies like the Internet and mobile phones are siphoning television audiences, media companies argued that the Web also brings new revenue streams.
But the discussion quickly moved to criticism of the perception that traditional media businesses are dead, and to the rampant copyright offenses enabled by new digital technologies.
"The Googles of the world, they are the Custer of the modern world. We are the Sioux nation," Time Warner Inc. Chief Executive Richard Parsons said, referring to the Civil War American general George Custer who was defeated by Native Americans in a battle dubbed "Custer's Last Stand".
"They will lose this war if they go to war," Parsons added, "The notion that the new kids on the block have taken over is a false notion."
Time Warner defended its discussions on copyright protection with Internet search leader Google Inc., which another panel member, Viacom Inc., has sued.
Viacom, owner of the MTV and Comedy Central networks, is seeking more than $1 billion from Google and its online video site YouTube, accusing them in a lawsuit of "massive intentional copyright infringement."
Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman said on the panel his company had discussed working with Google and YouTube earlier than other major media companies, by virtue of the popularity of its programs on the Web and their resonance with young viewers.
Dauman said Viacom had little choice after failing to reach an agreement, as video clips of its shows were uploaded by YouTube users without its permission.
"So, it was only reluctantly after trying for a long period of time, to reach a deal that we found that we could not tolerate having our content taken, when we've got Brian and Dick and others compensating us for it," Dauman said, referring to Comcast Corp. Chief Executive Brian Roberts and Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons.
"We were forced into it," he added.
Google, whose advances in applying its Internet paid search technology to the television industry, radio and print has spooked traditional media companies, owns a 5 percent stake in Time Warner's AOL Internet unit.
"We're in a world where we're a partner with everybody and we're fighting everybody," News Corp. Chief Operating Officer Peter Chernin said on the panel.
Despite the attention from Wall Street, the media industry and the press, executives said the percentage of overall sales contributed by digital businesses remained small and they should be mindful of destroying existing lucrative businesses.
"The amount of money we get from those (Internet companies) are a fraction of those we get from the cable industry," Chernin said. "We have to be careful not to disaggregate."
News Corp. is likely in a position to know how enemies today could turn into friends tomorrow.
A source familiar with the matter said News Corp.'s Fox Interactive Media, which oversees its popular Internet social network MySpace, had reached a preliminary deal to buy photo sharing site Photobucket for an estimated $250 million.
MySpace last month blocked traffic coming from Photobucket after the photo service began running ads on photos displayed on MySpace sites. MySpace said it had violated its service terms.
"You'll see more acquisitions," Chernin said. "This is a world where the big get bigger. You'll see increased consolidation."
Tue May 8, 2007 7:40PM EDT
By Kenneth Li
LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Leading media executives took a combative tone against Internet companies on Tuesday, suggesting that Big Media increasingly considers new content distributors like Google Inc. to be more foe than friend.
At a panel discussion on the second day of the 56th annual National Cable & Telecommunications Association conference, top executives said talk of the demise of traditional media in the digital age was overblown.
While new distribution technologies like the Internet and mobile phones are siphoning television audiences, media companies argued that the Web also brings new revenue streams.
But the discussion quickly moved to criticism of the perception that traditional media businesses are dead, and to the rampant copyright offenses enabled by new digital technologies.
"The Googles of the world, they are the Custer of the modern world. We are the Sioux nation," Time Warner Inc. Chief Executive Richard Parsons said, referring to the Civil War American general George Custer who was defeated by Native Americans in a battle dubbed "Custer's Last Stand".
"They will lose this war if they go to war," Parsons added, "The notion that the new kids on the block have taken over is a false notion."
Time Warner defended its discussions on copyright protection with Internet search leader Google Inc., which another panel member, Viacom Inc., has sued.
Viacom, owner of the MTV and Comedy Central networks, is seeking more than $1 billion from Google and its online video site YouTube, accusing them in a lawsuit of "massive intentional copyright infringement."
Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman said on the panel his company had discussed working with Google and YouTube earlier than other major media companies, by virtue of the popularity of its programs on the Web and their resonance with young viewers.
Dauman said Viacom had little choice after failing to reach an agreement, as video clips of its shows were uploaded by YouTube users without its permission.
"So, it was only reluctantly after trying for a long period of time, to reach a deal that we found that we could not tolerate having our content taken, when we've got Brian and Dick and others compensating us for it," Dauman said, referring to Comcast Corp. Chief Executive Brian Roberts and Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons.
"We were forced into it," he added.
Google, whose advances in applying its Internet paid search technology to the television industry, radio and print has spooked traditional media companies, owns a 5 percent stake in Time Warner's AOL Internet unit.
"We're in a world where we're a partner with everybody and we're fighting everybody," News Corp. Chief Operating Officer Peter Chernin said on the panel.
Despite the attention from Wall Street, the media industry and the press, executives said the percentage of overall sales contributed by digital businesses remained small and they should be mindful of destroying existing lucrative businesses.
"The amount of money we get from those (Internet companies) are a fraction of those we get from the cable industry," Chernin said. "We have to be careful not to disaggregate."
News Corp. is likely in a position to know how enemies today could turn into friends tomorrow.
A source familiar with the matter said News Corp.'s Fox Interactive Media, which oversees its popular Internet social network MySpace, had reached a preliminary deal to buy photo sharing site Photobucket for an estimated $250 million.
MySpace last month blocked traffic coming from Photobucket after the photo service began running ads on photos displayed on MySpace sites. MySpace said it had violated its service terms.
"You'll see more acquisitions," Chernin said. "This is a world where the big get bigger. You'll see increased consolidation."
USPS May Revise Slim-Jim Specs
USPS May Revise Slim-Jim Specs
May 8, 2007 6:11 PM , By Jim Tierney
Catalogers considering switching to a slim-jim format to save on postage costs might want to put those plans on hold. The U.S. Postal Service will begin to test a variety of booklets—which by postal definition includes slim-jims. The result could be revised specifications for such mail pieces.
USPS spokesperson Dave Partenheimer tells MULTICHANNEL MERCHANT that the Postal Service has been contemplating revising its standards for folded self-mailers and booklets, which fall under the “letter mail” category, for some time. “We do have current plans to conduct testing of a variety of booklets within the next few months,” he says. “Based on the results of the tests, we may find that we need to make some revisions to standards.”
What’s more, Partenheimer says, the USPS wants to “get the word out” that requirements might change, “so mailers don’t risk spending money on converting to the wrong letter booklet specifications.”
Don Landis, vice president of postal affairs for Menomonee Falls, WI-based printer Arandell Corp., says the USPS recently discovered that many supervisors were running slim-jims on flat sorters rather than letter sorters.
“Some slim-jims were causing the letter sorters to jam; however, some slim-jims sorted just fine,” Landis says. “The USPS is now testing various types of slim-jims, different piece weights, cover weights, and sizes. The test is supposed to last a couple of months. I do think there will be new specs for slim-jims to qualify for the letter rate.”
Dimensions for slim-jim catalogs are roughly 6-1/8" × 11-1/2" and 1/4" thick. To qualify for conventional letter-size rates, the catalog must weigh 3 oz. or less. In addition to these rates, there is a subclass referred to by the U.S. Postal Service as Heavy Letters for catalogs weighing more than 3 oz. and up to 3.5 oz. that are placed in envelopes. If a book weighs more than 3.3 oz. and up to 3.5 oz., it will qualify for a hybrid rate that is still significantly below the rates for flats. Any book over 3.5 oz., even if it is enveloped, will be considered a flat.
Under the postal rates that go into effect on May 14, you could save roughly $0.10 per book in postage by switching from a standard-size catalog, which is considered a flat, that weighs less than 3.0 oz. to a slim-jim.
May 8, 2007 6:11 PM , By Jim Tierney
Catalogers considering switching to a slim-jim format to save on postage costs might want to put those plans on hold. The U.S. Postal Service will begin to test a variety of booklets—which by postal definition includes slim-jims. The result could be revised specifications for such mail pieces.
USPS spokesperson Dave Partenheimer tells MULTICHANNEL MERCHANT that the Postal Service has been contemplating revising its standards for folded self-mailers and booklets, which fall under the “letter mail” category, for some time. “We do have current plans to conduct testing of a variety of booklets within the next few months,” he says. “Based on the results of the tests, we may find that we need to make some revisions to standards.”
What’s more, Partenheimer says, the USPS wants to “get the word out” that requirements might change, “so mailers don’t risk spending money on converting to the wrong letter booklet specifications.”
Don Landis, vice president of postal affairs for Menomonee Falls, WI-based printer Arandell Corp., says the USPS recently discovered that many supervisors were running slim-jims on flat sorters rather than letter sorters.
“Some slim-jims were causing the letter sorters to jam; however, some slim-jims sorted just fine,” Landis says. “The USPS is now testing various types of slim-jims, different piece weights, cover weights, and sizes. The test is supposed to last a couple of months. I do think there will be new specs for slim-jims to qualify for the letter rate.”
Dimensions for slim-jim catalogs are roughly 6-1/8" × 11-1/2" and 1/4" thick. To qualify for conventional letter-size rates, the catalog must weigh 3 oz. or less. In addition to these rates, there is a subclass referred to by the U.S. Postal Service as Heavy Letters for catalogs weighing more than 3 oz. and up to 3.5 oz. that are placed in envelopes. If a book weighs more than 3.3 oz. and up to 3.5 oz., it will qualify for a hybrid rate that is still significantly below the rates for flats. Any book over 3.5 oz., even if it is enveloped, will be considered a flat.
Under the postal rates that go into effect on May 14, you could save roughly $0.10 per book in postage by switching from a standard-size catalog, which is considered a flat, that weighs less than 3.0 oz. to a slim-jim.
See no evil, hear no evil and say no evil
See no evil, hear no evil and say no evil
May 9th, 2007
That was the first thing that came to my mind as my colleague Mark Dolan at the Department of Journalism (University of Mississippi) commented on the major disconnect which exists between the most journalism faculty’s published research and what goes on in real life newsrooms and television stations.
We were debating how many times we ever heard an editor or publisher refer to an article in Journalism Quarterly or Journalism Monographs (two major publications in journalism education that help faculty get tenured if they publish in them) when they meet with you or talk to you about the business.
It never happens.
The opposite is true with almost any other profession. Doctors refer to the New England Journal of Medicine every time they talk about their research, so do scientists when they refer to Nature magazine. And then come the journalists. We try to debate and analyze the most obscure things that bring our industry no benefit.
I still remember that day in 1985 when I presented my first research on the survival rate of magazines and the looks I received from my academic colleagues. They thought I am the anti Christ. Writing about things that are not historical in nature, which do not analyze the nature of content of the coverage of some war in some magazine, or some women’s issues in some non-women’s magazines—the list goes on and on. From my early career days, I promised myself to make all my research relevant to the industry I love and teach about. From that summer of ‘85, I started directing all my work to the industry rather than my colleagues. All my books, all my articles, my web site and now my blog aim to answer ‘what is in it for me, the reader, the publisher, the editor and the art director’. The industry needs academia to be on the forefront of the future—to be learning from our past, not living in it.
When I read some of my colleagues’ writings and discoveries for things that have been taking place for years, I can’t help but to wonder why our industry leaders do not use our research in their works and daily discussions. We can’t continue this disconnect with the industry. Yes, we are academia, but we should be in the service of our students first and the industry second. It can be done without having to sacrifice one on the alter of the other.
Our magazines, newspapers, the entire media field is screaming for help. Do not bury your heads in the sand and pretend that it does not matter to you. You and your relevant research are needed now more than ever.
May 9th, 2007
That was the first thing that came to my mind as my colleague Mark Dolan at the Department of Journalism (University of Mississippi) commented on the major disconnect which exists between the most journalism faculty’s published research and what goes on in real life newsrooms and television stations.
We were debating how many times we ever heard an editor or publisher refer to an article in Journalism Quarterly or Journalism Monographs (two major publications in journalism education that help faculty get tenured if they publish in them) when they meet with you or talk to you about the business.
It never happens.
The opposite is true with almost any other profession. Doctors refer to the New England Journal of Medicine every time they talk about their research, so do scientists when they refer to Nature magazine. And then come the journalists. We try to debate and analyze the most obscure things that bring our industry no benefit.
I still remember that day in 1985 when I presented my first research on the survival rate of magazines and the looks I received from my academic colleagues. They thought I am the anti Christ. Writing about things that are not historical in nature, which do not analyze the nature of content of the coverage of some war in some magazine, or some women’s issues in some non-women’s magazines—the list goes on and on. From my early career days, I promised myself to make all my research relevant to the industry I love and teach about. From that summer of ‘85, I started directing all my work to the industry rather than my colleagues. All my books, all my articles, my web site and now my blog aim to answer ‘what is in it for me, the reader, the publisher, the editor and the art director’. The industry needs academia to be on the forefront of the future—to be learning from our past, not living in it.
When I read some of my colleagues’ writings and discoveries for things that have been taking place for years, I can’t help but to wonder why our industry leaders do not use our research in their works and daily discussions. We can’t continue this disconnect with the industry. Yes, we are academia, but we should be in the service of our students first and the industry second. It can be done without having to sacrifice one on the alter of the other.
Our magazines, newspapers, the entire media field is screaming for help. Do not bury your heads in the sand and pretend that it does not matter to you. You and your relevant research are needed now more than ever.
Journalism's Future: A "Panorama of Possibilities,"
Journalism's Future: A "Panorama of Possibilities," Concludes Overholser in New Study
by David Burton
http://southwestregionnewsservice.blogspot.com/2007/05/journalisms-future-panorama-of.html
Downward trends in circulation have many people talking about the future of journalism. There is plenty of finger pointing but change seems hard to find.
Even revenue from classifieds is moving downward as more Americans sell items via ebay or Craigslist. You can read the comments of Craigslist founder in Editor & Publisher about this change and what he sees as the failure of American newspapers.
Along those same lines, a member of the journalism faculty at the University of Missouri recently wrote about the future of journalism. Here is a release that announced her work during the fall of 2006.
Journalism will survive only if it adapts to the times, writes Geneva Overholser in a new report titled "On Behalf of Journalism: A Manifesto for Change." The report was released in the fall by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
"The story of American journalism is undergoing a dramatic rewrite," says Overholser, a nationally known reporter and editor who formerly worked for The New York Times, the Washington Post and the Des Moines Register before joining the faculty of the Missouri School of Journalism. "The pace of change makes many anxious, and denunciations are lobbed from all sides - and from within. It's easy to overlook the promise of the many possibilities that lie before us."
Overholser holds the Curtis B. Hurley Chair in Public Affairs Reporting at the School and works out of its Washington, D.C. bureau at the National Press Club.
The Overholser report, a project of the Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands, in partnership with the Annenberg Public Policy Center, is the result of more than a year's worth of research and interviews. The project grew out of a June 2005 conference in Philadelphia that brought together 40 journalists, scholars and news executives to discuss the role of the press in a democracy and what might be done to enhance it.
In the process, topics such as the growing financial pressures on newspapers, the benefits of public vs. private ownership, credentialing of journalists, the role of government in a free press and new forms of media were discussed. At the conclusion of the conference, Overholser conducted additional analysis of media problems and potential solutions before writing the report.
She also created a list of "action steps" - recommendations designed to keep the nation's media vigorous and independent, while recognizing a dramatically different information landscape.
"We are not lacking for ways to deliver information," Overholser concludes. "What we are lacking, increasingly, is the particular kind of information that keeps free people free...The first step toward solving this challenge is understanding its magnitude. Then will come necessary actions from many different constituencies. We intend to pursue these solutions vigorously, in the fine company of others working on behalf of journalism."
by David Burton
http://southwestregionnewsservice.blogspot.com/2007/05/journalisms-future-panorama-of.html
Downward trends in circulation have many people talking about the future of journalism. There is plenty of finger pointing but change seems hard to find.
Even revenue from classifieds is moving downward as more Americans sell items via ebay or Craigslist. You can read the comments of Craigslist founder in Editor & Publisher about this change and what he sees as the failure of American newspapers.
Along those same lines, a member of the journalism faculty at the University of Missouri recently wrote about the future of journalism. Here is a release that announced her work during the fall of 2006.
Journalism will survive only if it adapts to the times, writes Geneva Overholser in a new report titled "On Behalf of Journalism: A Manifesto for Change." The report was released in the fall by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
"The story of American journalism is undergoing a dramatic rewrite," says Overholser, a nationally known reporter and editor who formerly worked for The New York Times, the Washington Post and the Des Moines Register before joining the faculty of the Missouri School of Journalism. "The pace of change makes many anxious, and denunciations are lobbed from all sides - and from within. It's easy to overlook the promise of the many possibilities that lie before us."
Overholser holds the Curtis B. Hurley Chair in Public Affairs Reporting at the School and works out of its Washington, D.C. bureau at the National Press Club.
The Overholser report, a project of the Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands, in partnership with the Annenberg Public Policy Center, is the result of more than a year's worth of research and interviews. The project grew out of a June 2005 conference in Philadelphia that brought together 40 journalists, scholars and news executives to discuss the role of the press in a democracy and what might be done to enhance it.
In the process, topics such as the growing financial pressures on newspapers, the benefits of public vs. private ownership, credentialing of journalists, the role of government in a free press and new forms of media were discussed. At the conclusion of the conference, Overholser conducted additional analysis of media problems and potential solutions before writing the report.
She also created a list of "action steps" - recommendations designed to keep the nation's media vigorous and independent, while recognizing a dramatically different information landscape.
"We are not lacking for ways to deliver information," Overholser concludes. "What we are lacking, increasingly, is the particular kind of information that keeps free people free...The first step toward solving this challenge is understanding its magnitude. Then will come necessary actions from many different constituencies. We intend to pursue these solutions vigorously, in the fine company of others working on behalf of journalism."
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Craigslist founder questions print future
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Heard on the Web" Media Intelligence: Courtesy of BoSacks and The Precision Media Group BoSacks on the WebAmerica's Oldest e-newsletter est.1993 The BoSacks Blog Spot Click here to forward this email ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
| "The printed page conveys information and commitment, and requires active involvement. Television conveys emotion and experience, and it's very limited in what it can do logically. It's an existential experience-there and then gone." Bill Moyers Craigslist founder questions print future http://www.newsandtech.com/dateline/05-07- 07_date.htm ----------------------------------------------------------- | |
| Responses to all Articles and Bo-Rants are greatly encouraged and may be included in " BoSacks Readers Speak Out" "Heard on the Web" Media Intelligence: Courtesy of The Precision Media Group.
| |
| Publishing Links and News ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
| Contact Information ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ email: bosacks@aol.com phone: 518-329-7994 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| ||||
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
