Since this blog is now on Tallahassee.com, I've received a bunch of comments on the Death of a Medium post. Which totally surprised me. Some bloggers love their newspaper.
One commenter hinted that it was the experience of reading a newspaper that they loved. So my question to anyone reading is, "How do you take your media?"
Research points out that radio listening happens at home and in the car. TV viewing is mostly in the home (in fact, TV is also measured by households). The most Internet activity happens throughout the day; news is sought during the morning at work and informational searches typically occur at home in the evening (ex. house hunting sites). But what about magazine reading? Or newspapers?
Enter a major benefit of printed media: portability. You can take it with you. Where do I read my latest issue of Domino (best lifestyle mag ever)? On my back deck, in bed before I turn the lights out, in the car when I'm not driving, the beach, a plane trip...I can take it anywhere. If I lose my signal, no problem.
So there ya go. I'm standing up for printed, tangible, flammable media.
Photo via stock.xchng
3 comments:
I still dig magazines, very much. The depth of content, the portability as you say, and the way mags entice me to read articles I never would click on in the internet -- it all creates a rich experience. Plus each magazine has its own world vibe: Esquire vs. The Economist vs. The New Yorker vs. Rolling Stone, all take you to different places.
Magazines will survive, because they are beautiful, and the best attract real editing and writing talent hard to find online.
Newsprint, however, will die -- at least 90% of it. Small local weeklies and big national dailies may lumber on for a decade or two. But the mid-sized city papers in the middle of the spectrum, padded with AP wire reports, well, what's the point?
I think most newspapers will go away because iPhone-type devices make getting news so much easier. If you have portability, and free access, and instant control over where you can go, why put up with a stodgy broadsheet? Plus, admit it. That ink coming off on your fingers was a real pain.
The sad thing is the slide seems irrevocable. As circs fall, advertisers get reduced responses, marketers pull money out of newsprint, papers lay off staff, the quality declines, and readers have even more incentive to bail. It's a horrible circle.
The good news is blogs are kind of taking us back to how journalism began -- with lots of edgy points of view and news flying around the country. The spirit of print is still alive, but now its found on blogs like this one.
ps a newspaper editor would have caught that last its/it's mistake. ah, the freedom of blogggs.
Oooh I like that "spirit of print." It makes me think of the old time movies with the kid on the sidewalk clutching the morning paper yelling, "read all about it!" haha
I totally agree about magazines. I can't imagine them dying off. I do think some of them lack in the online content part, unfortunately. They just don't seem to translate.
I think with newspapers it's all a matter of shifting where we get our info. Newspaper websites are huge - almost always the most popular local online destination. So as long as they still report local news, I'm more than happy to avoid messy fingers and killing trees!
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