I just read a blog post over at the newly revamped Drake Magazine website by noted shoelace hater, Tom Bie. Yes, he really does hate shoelaces. But that’s not what this is about. This is about a well written piece Tom wrote dubbed, Print is Dead.
As the 15th Drake makes its way across the country this fall, I find myself intrigued by all the recent chatter on the downfall of magazines, most of it coming from new-media pundits shouting their favorite proclamation: “Print is dead!”
Tom goes on to illustrate why he feels that maybe, just maybe, print media hasn’t been kicked under the rug just yet.
If we’re talking about technology like Amazon’s Kindle, which allows readers to look up words, change font size, and buy almost any book they can think of in a matter of minutes, then I’ll concede the point: it provides new, innovative, creative ideas. But still, does this girl really look comfortable? I firmly believe in embracing new technology—a belief I back up by constantly supporting and promoting flyfishing filmmakers and on-line innovators. Everything evolves, and magazines should be no different. (Is it ironic that I’m using my blog to make a post about the strength of print?) Regardless of the platform, magazines need to attract and retain readers. And the only way to do that is to produce something worth looking at. It all comes down to quality, and the user-experience. Brian O’Keefe and Todd Moen have made Catch magazine popular by producing a unique, high-quality, creative on-line experience. But I can’t say the same for the majority of blogs out there, or many other forms of media that are competing with print, including cable television.
I think it is very ironic that Tom is using his blog to make the case for print, but what is more ironic is the fact that so many of the fly fishing world’s new e-zines are all trying to look like a print magazine.
This same topic came up between myself and a friend a few weeks ago, and my friend asked the obvious-
I don’t understand why websites try to duplicate magazines. The web has infinite possibilities, while a magazine is what it is.
I don’t either, do you?
11 Responses
I agree with the author . There is a place in this world and in my hands for a well written magazine.There is something of a sense of permanence if there is such a word. That what your reading can’t be erased with the
touch of a delete key.Another quality of magazines is that they are finite in size . Therefore only the best articles are chosen for print.
Posted on September 29th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Are you saying you got your Drake before me? Dammit! Who do I speak to about this…do you think it is in my mailbox right now? Should I go home at lunch and check or wait until after work?
Print has and will always have it’s place I am sure, just like the networks have their place in a cable world. I usually have to print out the articles in This is fly and the others to read. Blog posts are generally shorter and random so they work on the web. Most people have the attention span of a flea online so it works. Full articles are for print…it’s not Tom’s fault the other mags just don’t get it. You only have to go to the cover of the new issue to see the difference.
Posted on September 29th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
A magazine will never run out of batteries, and you can’t very well wipe your ass with a kindle. Print will never die. (Says the guy with a blog who works for an e-zine)
Posted on September 30th, 2009 at 4:17 am
Websites try to duplicate magazines because the online ‘mag’ format and the neat page-turning audio as you click the corner of your screen are the half-way house in the shift away from paper: the reassuring pyschological tweaks that lure old geezers like me across the great divide.
Two years ago and typical of my generation, I was firmly in the ‘you can’t beat the feel of paper’ camp. Then that same human resilience that sees us adapt to countless changes in our lives, against all our initial expectations, kicked in once more.
I gave digital magazines a chance, then another, then another and before I knew it, I had come round to the idea that the sitting-back-with-a-good-read mindset was based more on the sitting back than on the medium in which that read happened to be presented. So I’m holding a laptop instead of stapled pages? My armchair’s still my armchair.
I now firmly believe paper’s days to be numbered. If codgers like me can be turned, no-one’s safe. But be in no doubt, that ‘turning page’ graphic and ‘rustling paper’ mpg file were the chenille and marabou that drew me to the hook.
Posted on September 30th, 2009 at 6:46 am
I’ll miss it but Print is dead,
It just doesn’t know it yet….
In my experience, until only a few years ago, most paper-based, publishing companies were only vaguely aware of the internet and it’s viability as a publishing medium. The result has been positively Darwinian. With recent reductions in ad revenue, some newspapers are actually morphing into online-only editions. Some are just firing everybody and selling the presses.
The recent economic troubles were just the asteroid that has pushed an already stressed industry towards total extinction. Sure, if the ads will support the mag, someone will chop down the trees to make it happen, but there’s no Vogue or Readers Digest for fly fishing. Some pubs probably have what’s called ‘runway’ or the financial means to ‘taxi’ along until business picks up, but financial, evolutionary pressure will drive the weak to shutter themselves.
I’ll admit, my site is very niche, but it’s hard to compete with online content, when most of it (including the stuff with ads) is given away for free.
-J
Posted on September 30th, 2009 at 10:55 am
Print is not dead. Maybe consuming the typed word on paper products is dying but the act of reading well-formed words, either online or elsewhere, will never go away. We’re talking about mediums for delivery here.
Videos are cool and eye-popping HD photos are fun to peruse but there’s something neither of them have over reading: The concept of absorbing something through the written word and filling in the gaps–how it looks, sounds, feels, and thinks–with your own imagination.
Posted on October 1st, 2009 at 10:49 pm
I don’t know if print is dead or not – but if it is I’ll mourn and horde. I’ll read short things online, like short blog or forum posts. I’ll get info online, like a fly recipe or driving directions – but I want a magazine or a book, if I’m really going to read something. My attention span while sitting at the computer screen is short.
I guess I’m attached to the “things” of reading almost as much as the reading itself.
Posted on October 2nd, 2009 at 7:00 am
I’m going to have to side with Fishing Jones, print may migrate to a number of new formats, but it will never die.
I think the issue has less to do with print than those that control access to it. The Internet has enabled the home-spun tiny shop to make as big an impact as a large, well run magazine. As such, we’re no longer held captive to what some Madison Ave genius thinks we should read – and can now graze on what we like, when we want …
Which is shaking up the mainstream pretty well. They’ve taken us down the primrose path so that every other page is a Mercedes Benz advertisement – and found that real content is required to keep those eyeballs glued to the page.
Videos, blogs, and forums have watered down the few and content is cropping up all over. Unknown authors are making their voice heard unfettered by “needs more Sex” or the editor’s harsh blue pencil.
… and that is great.
There will be plenty more iterations to come, likely many will be a surprise to us like Twitter – but as long as fresh blood has access to all the public eyeballs, crappy magazines will have to compete for our attention – instead of giving us the same silly articles time and time again.
Posted on October 2nd, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Sorry for the confusion. I should have said ‘print on paper’ is dead. Get yer first editions now cuz they’re gonna end up being pulped and made into Charmin. FWIW, I love reading books over blogs or online whatever. Far easier on ye olde’ peepers, especially with these new bifocals. Dogpile on astigmatism and all optometrists.
-J
Posted on October 3rd, 2009 at 11:39 pm
I whole heartedly agree with Fat Guy Alex and will add this, you can’t light a campfire with one of those electronic gizmos.
Posted on October 6th, 2009 at 11:09 am
I embrace both. The web provides instant access but there is still something about opening the mailbox and seeing the new issue waiting to be devoured.
Beside, I can’t take my laptop into the shitter ar work.
Posted on October 11th, 2009 at 7:57 am
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