MagBlog

That's what it said on the newspaper placard. Sorry to dip into newspapers again but I think this could be important for the following reasons:

1) A new field of study
I think I may have stumbled upon a new field of study for journalism professors – the humble placard (I know there's a proper technical term for them and I'll look it up in a minute). The words used and what they convey about the newspaper and its understanding of its readers could yield a rich seam of research.

2) Slow news day
If the best that a paper (in this case the moribund South Wales Post, Cardiff's dying evening) can come up with is a jar of Marmite in which a 36-year-old mum thinks she can spot the delineation of Our Saviour (great guy, shame about his Dad), then not much has happened in the preceding hours. Here's the story – it was the splash online when I checked.

3) Plagiarism
When I Googled the term "Jesus face" one of the links led me to this story on the Daily Mail's website: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1189188/The-Marmite-messiah-How-mother-Jesus-ja.html Look familiar? You can check the times of posting for yourselves.

4) The internet is killing journalism
Who is going to pay 40p (or whatever) to check out this story when a Google search (other search engines are available) will bring up a lot of "Jesus face" stories: aubergines, cushions, cinnamon buns, potatoes, Kitkat bars– you know the drill.

5) But most of all, journalists are killing journalism
Viz, all of the above.

UPDATE
Just found this story via Nieman Journalism Lab: love the phrase "Big Iron" to describe press corporations.

UPDATE 2
Read Dan's comment(s) below and then feast your eyes on this story about a very tired fish.

Labels: fourth estate, Jesus, newspapers, Paul Dacre, print journalism

Now this could be interesting. UTV, the owner of TalkSport radio, is in discussions to buy Sport, the free magazine distributed in London and elsewhere until its publishers ran out of money on April 3, according to MediaGuardian today.

Why is it interesting? Because just about a year ago TalkSport launched its own online magazine (see http://mag.talksport.net/free-sport-mag-talksport-football-humour-babe/1N4a0997c3bd723012.cde) and has promoted it relentlessly on air ever since. It's still there, it's still free and clearly UTV think it's an area worth investing in.

As long as they don't bring back Kelvin Mackenzie to edit it ... (actually I just typed Mackenzine, which has possibilities).

Labels: digital magazines, electronic magazines, kelvin mackenzie, magazines, niche publishing, print journalism

You thought that teenagers didn't read print magazines any more? Well at least one school librarian would beg to differ with you, in this article from the School Library Journal.

Labels: print journalism, print magazines, teenagers

I swear that I wrote the previous post (about an iTunes equivalent for magazine distribution) BEFORE I ever saw this article about a magazine app for the iPhone (and also available through iTunes. The author makes an interesting point about the importance of touch and feel to magazines ("haptics"), and then relates it to the iPhone's touch screen.

Meanwhile in another part of the forest, US News & World Report thinks it is a good idea to launch a weekly paid for news magazine in pdf format. I am not sure I agree with Martin Stabe, whose cryptic tweet indicated he could see three major problems with it; I'm guessing the operative words are news, paid for and pdf. News is a highly perishable commodity, no doubt about that, but informed summary and analysis is not – at least in paper form, if the paid for inky The Week is anything to judge by. The pdf format is more tricky as Mark Potts points out in a Recovering Journalist post:

PDF products are beloved solely by printie publishers and editors who think readers want to read the news in a print-like layout, and don't understand that a) electronic delivery is a completely different format than print and b) readers really don't want to have to print out their own magazine or newspaper.

And in yet another leafy glade, Richard Addis suggests on Shakeup Media that newspaper publishers should, among other things, "Create one single national website for local news."

Labels: digital magazines, electronic magazines, haptics, iTunes, magazines, mobile, news magazine, print journalism, readertorial, weekly magazine

Once upon a time Johannes Gutenberg invented (or re-invented, or perfected) the printing press with moveable type. For a long, long time the press he designed and made was THE printing technology.
Then other people modified and improved the press and the type, used new materials that made it all more durable or easier to use or more efficient, and their presses and type expanded the market.
Then a clever person (or people) devised a way to separate type and press, so that the text could be set up separately and combined with the press in a different way that was more efficient again. As Adam Smith would have predicted, this increased output further. It also allowed presses to become faster, driven first by steam and then by electricity.
Then the mechanical typesetting systems were replaced by electronic ones, and then the electronic versions were made simpler and easier and this process collided with the miniaturisation of computers, leading to desktop publishing that put the compositors and proof-readers out of business.
And now, as Marshall McLuhan would have predicted, the press has become a fully electric artefact, incorporated invisibly into the code that drives a computer and its screen.
At each stage there was upheaval and realignment; people who did old things had to learn to do new things or be pushed aside by the inevitability of technological progress.
And at each stage, as old business opportunities and models died away, new ones took their place.
The people who made the real money were those who owned the means of production, as Karl Marx would have predicted, by which they could introduce those with something to sell to those who had the money to buy – and charge both sides. The bait was "journalism" (ie stories) and they needed to employ other people to do the actual production (printers, compositors, journalists), so the money got spread around a bit, and they continued to grow partly by taking over or driving out smaller, less capitalised businesses.
We can see that something major is happening now, and even though we can't see the outcome, the process follows a similar pattern.
A clever man (or men, or people) invents the electronic press (internet protocol), someone invents a way to both locate and distribute the products of that press (search: AltaVista, Dogpile), then someone else invents a better, more efficient, way (Google). So far, the people who have made a bit of money out of this are the equipment suppliers (routers, servers, personal computers) and the businesses that have managed to combine search and advertising (basically Google to date).
At the same time, because the means of production have become much more widely available, capital and the accumulation of income have also become more widely (and thinly) distributed.
The question for journalists then becomes either "Who will pay me to produce?" or "How can I tap into the current streams of revenue?"
(This leaves aside questions about the role of the press as the Fourth Estate, and editorial workers as Gate Keepers and all that – perhaps those roles are relativistic.)
If the previous patterns show us anything useful, it is that someone will invent a new way of harvesting the potential – but also that many new ways of harvesting will be discovered. And if the shitstream (Copyright: Dr Daniel Meadows) of the internet tells us anything it is that people still love stories, telling their own and consuming other people's.
So here's one thing for all journalists to cling on to: Find the best stories.

Labels: amazon, audience, Cardiff Journalism School, community, development, digital revenue, media jobs, online, print journalism, readertorial, web 2.0

Stephen Bayley makes some nice points about The Book in an article on the BBC website (ironically enough), although as Dan Worth notes, many of the arguments are similar to those applied to print newspapers and magazines.

This does not make any of them untrue: print on paper will be with us for a long time. It is a well established system of production and consumption and there are some unique advantages to a print-on-paper product.

However, it does rely on a ready and relatively cheap supply of paper. Paper is made from trees, specially grown as a renewable crop. Businesses have made huge investments in these crops and they need a return – the highest possible return – on their investment. At the moment that is paper, which is still consumed in enormous quantities by the print industry, but what if the demand for paper continues to fall?

At the same time, what if the price of oil – a non-renewable resource – continues to rise?

Three words: biomass + fuel pellets.

You can make the equation for yourself. Instead of being a cheap(ish) source of paper pulp, the plantations of Finland and Canada and wherever else is big in paper making become valuable sources of heating fuel. In the UK, the National Trust has pledged to convert all its properties to biomass heating; in Wales permission has just been granted to build a massive new biomass-fuelled power station. I am sure that this is happening elsewhere and will only increase.

So, friends, just as capitalism contains the seeds of its own destruction (even the Daily Telegraph has acknowledged that Marx was right about this), so it also contains the seeds of the destruction of print on paper. The source material will simply become too valuable to waste on newspapers, magazines and books.

Labels: magazines, newspapers, paper, print journalism, print magazines

In a previous entry I mooted the possibility of opening up your print publication to the readers. In the course of my usual digging around I have discovered a project, in California (of course) which is actually doing just this. The interesting thing is that the print product has been reverse engineered from an online entity. Read Don Pacheco's article about the project, or go to the website that allows you to participate.

Print from online – is it just me or does that sound a bit like watching sport on the tv while listening to the radio commentary?

Labels: audience, community, print journalism, print magazines, readertorial, web 2.0

Below is a thought-provoking list from Mindy McAdams – useful for journalists, editors, publishers and journalism educators who want to move their courses on and prepare students for the world of work.

It can also be connected to the theory of Readertorial I am working on, as will become evident.

http://mindymcadams.com/tojou/2008/how-to-foster-innovation/

Labels: online, print journalism, training, web 2.0

Last night I had a stark reminder of the power of a printed magazine: its name is Sideburn.




Sideburn is an A5, perfect bound, 82+4, full colour throwback – or rather, it is the classic iteration of journalistic passion. Produced by two guys in a small town of the flatlands that surround FormerEmap's motorcycling centre of operations, it is all about, and only about, flat-track motorcycles and the people who build and ride them.

In grown-up commercial terms, that's a niche of a niche of a niche. In reality it's a fantastic magazine, full of the kinds of machines and people I love to know about.

For all the teaching I do about professional magazine craft and the digital future of publishing, Sideburn contains one eternal lesson. When you come down to it, there is nothing, NOTHING, to beat passionate editorial in a mobile product. Totally, unconditionally mobile. No electricity or signal or wireless network needed. Available anywhere, anytime.

Great things come in small packages, as Kenny Roberts once found:

Picture from Superbikeplanet.com

Labels: editorial passion, flat track, mobile, motorcycles, print journalism, print magazines

BBC Magazines, among others, have rushed to fill an apparent demand for print magazines in India but this report seems to indicate there there is, at least, a downward blip in print readership. The report does not indicate where those readers might have gone but other commentators have suggested a switch to digital media.

Perhaps lots of people have stopped buying a newspaper because they can now buy Hello (which is, of course, jointly published by BBC Worldwide).

Labels: BBC, India, magazines, print journalism