Leading Resource for Magazine Publishing Professionals
Media Vent
By Bob Sacks
About Bob
Bob Sacks (aka BoSacks) is a printing/publishing industry consultant and president of The Precision Media Group (BoSacks.com). He is also the co-founder of the research company Media-Ideas (Media-Ideas.net), and publisher and editor of a daily international e-newsletter, Heard on the Web. Sacks has held posts as director of manufacturing and distribution, senior sales manager (paper), chief of operations, pressman, circulator and almost every other job this industry has to offer.
Pub Talk
Don't Let Your Advertisers Put You Out of Business
Mar 8, 2010Perhaps publishers are becoming the 85-year-old widowed grandmother who gets taken by the nice guy on the phone offering to...
The End of Civilization As We Know It
A few days ago Samir Husni posted a selection of a lecture given by Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author. For the record, I completely disagree with most of what he said. Perhaps he and Samir were drinking from the same Kool-Aid dispenser before the lecture. I do wish I had been in the audience to ask a few simple and logical questions.
I don't believe that the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist "gets it," and I will bet he doesn't have a Twitter page or a blog. The end of printed newspapers is not the end of civilization as we know it. It is not the end of "civic and public responsibility." Quite the contrary. The World Wide Web is filled with serious writers, an amazing knowledge base, and on-the-scene, real-time reporters. Sure, some of it is junk or slanted or partisan. So what? So are many printed papers. Yellow journalism, which still exists, was invented in print, not on the Web.
Mr. Hedges' comments about you, my digital readers, is also nothing but fanciful fear-mongering—perhaps to sell his books? I wonder if his book is sold on Amazon? Is there a Kindle version? His statement that you are "the intellectual poverty of our post-literate world" is at best insulting. Do you feel post-literate? Do you think your children are post-literate? I do not. The current generation is just as capable as any other and perhaps more so. The tools that we all have available are staggering and being put to good use on a minute-by-minute basis.
There was vibrant, intelligent life before newspapers, and there will be life after the death of print newspapers. Knowledge is a very powerful elixir, and it is more available to a wider range of the public than ever before. The notion that only the "print journalists" have the moral right, the authority, or the wisdom to be the sole proprietors of knowledge and its distribution is absurd.
I don't believe that the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist "gets it," and I will bet he doesn't have a Twitter page or a blog. The end of printed newspapers is not the end of civilization as we know it. It is not the end of "civic and public responsibility." Quite the contrary. The World Wide Web is filled with serious writers, an amazing knowledge base, and on-the-scene, real-time reporters. Sure, some of it is junk or slanted or partisan. So what? So are many printed papers. Yellow journalism, which still exists, was invented in print, not on the Web.
Mr. Hedges' comments about you, my digital readers, is also nothing but fanciful fear-mongering—perhaps to sell his books? I wonder if his book is sold on Amazon? Is there a Kindle version? His statement that you are "the intellectual poverty of our post-literate world" is at best insulting. Do you feel post-literate? Do you think your children are post-literate? I do not. The current generation is just as capable as any other and perhaps more so. The tools that we all have available are staggering and being put to good use on a minute-by-minute basis.
There was vibrant, intelligent life before newspapers, and there will be life after the death of print newspapers. Knowledge is a very powerful elixir, and it is more available to a wider range of the public than ever before. The notion that only the "print journalists" have the moral right, the authority, or the wisdom to be the sole proprietors of knowledge and its distribution is absurd.
Companies Mentioned:
 |
Sections:
|
Your remarks are on point for the most part although I do think that there will be a small amount of print that will survive (but what do I know?"
I don't get Hedges' comments about the "post-literate world."
It seems to me that every time I enter the digital world to check up on the latest news, I AM FORCED TO READ IT!
Two points.
First, the bit about timely news is the challenged faced by newspapers. Their content isn't being challenged just their delivery system. Good reporting still ranks tops. The web is in the process of finding the business model to sustain excellent content which is beginning to happen.
To be honest, I'm reading more daily content now then when I had two printed newspapers tossed up on my porch each morning.
Second, I've read about the "chaos" caused by the introduction of the mass market paperback and the predicted demise of hardbacks. Civilization didn't end then either and hardbacks still sell, right next to mass market paperbacks.
Thanks,
Daniel Bradford
Publisher
I think that it is important to remember that people fear change. Especially when they don't understand the world of digital media/the Internet.
Newspapers have been an important part of our society for a long time now, and I think they will always have a place... if they can afford to remain open. But, I think anyone out there that hasn't been under a rock can and should be able to see that blogs/digital medias also have value.
Just because something is new and different doesn't make it bad. And, I think another point that is important to bring up is the face that kids/young people are into reading blogs and the Internet. This is a way to reach young people that can easily adapt and change to their wants and needs.
People are so quick to shoot something down when it isn't conventional or "Normal" Well guess what? Times are changing and the media has to change to keep up... if not they will be left behind. It may not be good, ideal, or the "Right" thing... but it is what is going on.
I agree completely with you, Bob. We need more of your clarity and positivity in this debate. Keep it up.
Thanks!
Michael McBride