Tuesday, January 13, 2009

On Newspapers

Working, as I do, in an industry whose three decade long history of management suicide attempts is at last bearing fruit, I try to avoid reading the wave of current stories telling me that, yes, at last, newspapers, having had their heads stuck in the oven for thirty years, have remembered to turn on the gas. Let me say it again, the only newspapers around in the future will be very upmarket, all the downmarket stuff being more readily available on the internet or in magazines made of  pulped squirrels that will be handed out free to the unemployable and the insane. Until that day of gentlemen print journalists dawns - more properly redawns - various schemes and scams will splutter and die. Here's one suggesting papers can be saved by Google, a company that has not been, in my experience, notably devoted to the culture of paper and ink. But patience, wood pulp, pigment and high intelligence will endure.

9 comments:

  1. hip, hip. hoorah!

    I've stopped buying long time.

    So, how much would these upmarket papers cost and what would be their attraction to the well-off - the fact that they cost a lot?

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  2. The ST has had a shilling for the gas meter on its payroll for some time now, it's called AA Gill.
    What is he all about, can anyone say?

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  3. What about a return to the days of the Pamphlet. If the libel laws shift to the point where the destruction of a rep' is measured by the equal in value of the entire paper. Then we might see more beautiful writing, less papers mind you, but way better writing. It may even birth another Swift. And you cannot be serious, Gentleman Reporters. No such thing, never was.

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  4. I can dream, Vince, and i have exquisite manners.

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  5. Brown or gray squirrels?

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  6. I want cynical drunken hacks with a thirst for bad scotch and great scoops; I want deranged megolomaniac proprietors; I want valkyrie editresses in too-tight dresses. Only we can do the groundwork that assures the future of the gentlemen journalist. Only we can save the world. We are coming.

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  7. There is the possibility that in the future the unemployed, poor, etc., across the world may have small cost and size newspapers. Newspapers that carry mostly local news of interest like the turn of the 20th century. They will be run by small companies and have a small circulation.

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  8. There was a photograph of me in the very first edition of The Independent.. just thought I would mention that. Bet that bothers you all...

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  9. I have just got out of the newspaper biz and am going back to academe. Despite "distance learning," teachers are still in demand.

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