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When newspapers are gone, what will you miss?

sethgodin.typepad.com

51–60 of 65 posts

Re: When newspapers are gone, what will you miss?

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likewise. I kind of felt like saying "I'll miss all the same stuff I missed already 10 years ago, like investigative reporting." But now I can't even remember if they were doing that 10 years ago.

Actually, I do know one thing I'll miss... I'll miss the cheap packing material for my dishes when I move.

I grew up with the family tradition of wrapping gifts in the comics sections. The kids would actually unwrap the gifts and then read any comics that were still legible too, haha.

Re: When newspapers are gone, what will you miss?

#52

sunday funnies

Not unless they bring back gigantic Winsor McKay-style full-page illustrations. Or long-form Will Eisner-style comic tales. Otherwise I'll read 'em online. Small one-to-five panel jokes work just as well online. The last comic I can remember that tried to take any real advantage of the print medium was Calvin and Hobbes .

Mutts makes good use of color and space, but the local paper seems to determined to fuck that up, too.

Re: When newspapers are gone, what will you miss?

#56
I will miss the serendipitous discovery of information gained by casually browsing a newspaper. Kind of like reading a social news site. I rarely pick up a paper to read a particular article; I read for the sake of reading.

However, I disagree with the underlying assumption: newspapers are not going to go away completely. Instead, the industry will become strongly segmented into hyperlocal and national divisions.

Hyperlocal papers (the myriad 20k-circ dailies and weeklies) are doing great right now, primarily because they provide coverage of news and events that isn't available anywhere else.

A handful of national papers will survive, too, in order to satisfy those who still enjoy getting national news from dead trees (a segment that, while shrinking, is unlikely to completely disappear). My money is on The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and perhaps The New York Times weathering the storm.

Mid-level papers, on the other hand, are doomed. They are the "mushy middle," satisfying nobody's needs well.

I used to work at a newspaper, and I feel sentimental about them, but emotion does not change business reality.

Re: When newspapers are gone, what will you miss?

#57
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You seriously believe that 98% of the NYT expenses are consumed by movie reviews, the crossword guy, and David Brooks? You're forgetting the actual paper and the cost of distributing it. We know the revenues (roughly) and that the expenses are about the same. How many actual investigative reporters do you think that the NYT has? Multiply that number by your guess of their average burdended cost and compare that to…

Frankly, you are also forgetting about the actual paper and cost of distributing it! I can believe your kind of calculations only in the context of a plausible accounting for all NYT expenses. With out factoring management, lawyers, plane tickets, real estate, etc., you will be way off. BTW 30 is absurdly low. The NYT has more than 30 offices ! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_New_York_Times_empl...

According to Wikipedia the Times only has 350 writers total. It's clear that the majority of these are not doing investigative journalism, they are following the candidates around and rewriting press releases and such. I don't see how the number of actual investigative journalists could possibly be more than 100.

Re: When newspapers are gone, what will you miss?

#59

sunday funnies

Not unless they bring back gigantic Winsor McKay-style full-page illustrations. Or long-form Will Eisner-style comic tales. Otherwise I'll read 'em online. Small one-to-five panel jokes work just as well online. The last comic I can remember that tried to take any real advantage of the print medium was Calvin and Hobbes .

Might be a viable business. Snail mail weekly full size newsprint filled just with comics from artists wanting to push the medium a little. Call it "The Sunday Funnies."

Re: When newspapers are gone, what will you miss?

#60
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not unless they bring back gigantic Winsor McKay-style full-page illustrations. Or long-form Will Eisner-style comic tales. Otherwise I'll read 'em online. Small one-to-five panel jokes work just as well online. The last comic I can remember that tried to take any real advantage of the print medium was Calvin and Hobbes .

How?

Watterson convered this in some of Calvin and Hobbes reprint books, but basically, a Sunday strip is at most 12 panels (call it 12 units) long. By modern convention, you have a 4-unit title panel, a 2 unit panel with a single throw away joke (or two 1 unit panels with a throw away joke), leaving 6 units left for the main Sunday joke.

A newspaper then has several options for displaying the Sunday comic. They can run the full 12 units. They can eliminate the 4-unit title and run 8 units. They can also substitute the 4-unit title for a 1-unit title and run a 9-unit strip. They can drop the 2 unit throw-away joke for a 10 unit strip. They can drop the title and throw away joke for a 6 unit strip (smallest they can run).

After Watterson's sabbatical in the early 90s (I think it was 1990), he fought for a full 12-unit (in a 4x3 layout), and won (since his strip was so popular), in which he was able to work without any constraint. He could basically do a huge 1-unit Sunday strip, or a 24 small panel strip, or strips without panels, or what ever he felt was needed for the Sunday strip. The artwork for the late Calvin and Hobbes Sunday strips was phenomenal and probably nothing like it had been seen for 60 or 70 years (and nothing like it since).

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