Can design save the newspaper?
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- TheBlueOne0
First, I don't think it's the format itself, I think it was dumb business decisions in the consolidation of the publishing industry the last decade or so. Just lik ein other fields, papers were bought with huge amounts of leverage by companies that knew jackshit about publishing. Now that the leveraged purchases are falling apart, people think it's because there's a dearth of advertisers or that newspapers themselves are a dying format...
Secondly, the publishing industry isn't staffed with geniuses. Far from it:
- twokids0
i am so tired of the newspaper industry giving itself press about how it is going to die! who cares....it should die! less trees cut down, more oxegyn! give everyone an iphone and shut up!
and that goes for you too books...kindle! who cares!
- I'd argue that books fulfill a different need and brain response.harlequino
- so did rolled up parchments, and cave drawingstwokids
- Nairn0
I mean, PonyBoy, that the service merits of the industry should be worth fighting for - worth promoting. I'm not saying the form of media itself is due a governmental break (though don't think it's a necessarily a bad idea either), but rather the content and public purpose it serves - be it on paper, on screen or ebook. Televised media is a highly poor substitute for educational news (next time you're watching the news, do a word count, then go find a decent comparative newspaper article, and compare depth and breadth of coverage). Fuck the trite aphorism that 'a picture speaks a thousand words', it gives nothing by way of educated opinion or analysis by relevant thought-leaders.
Leaving things to market forces, as you seem to be suggesting, would only lead to the further degradation of service and replacement with fetid sleb culture and vacuous gossip and feel-good nothingness that continues to erode mass-media.
Of course, I'd rather we had a viable micropayment model to sustain transference to a functional new media model, or assurance that a quality service can be delivered online, paid solely by advertising (which seems to be a viable proposition, if the success of NYT online or purchase by Murdoch of the WSJ recently are anything to go by).