Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

The website for the PBS program Mediashift last week had an interesting interview with “Mr. Magazine,” Samir Husni. Husni is a journalist and journalism professor who is frequently quoted in media stories about magazines and newspapers. He also has a blog. Husni is a very intelligent guy, but I didn’t agree with a lot of what he said, for example: “As long as we have human beings, we are going to continue to have ink on paper.” Well, of course. Again, no one’s saying that print’s going to become extinct. Instead, it’s going to turn more into an artform than it is now. In the past it was used as utility (a means of conveying information from one place to another, since usurped by the Internet), but in the future it will be seen as an afterthought or an indulgence (people buying and reading physical magazines or newspapers because they want to, not necessarily because they have to in order to get the information). And where we find ourselves today is going through the transformation from one to the other. But no one is saying we’re heading towards Fahrenheit 451 where firemen start fires instead of putting them out, and paper is an endangered species.

For Husni, as it does for many others, it seems to finally come down to a technology joust: “But there are also ways that the new technology cannot compete with print.” Of course, what’s implicit in this statement is that there are indeed ways that technology can compete with print, and in fact, there are many things that technology can do that print cannot. In fact, when you take the emotional element out of the judgment of a book or newspaper or a magazine, technology has so much more to offer, especially these days. For instance, compare reading the website Pitchfork today to reading Spin magazine a decade ago. As the old quote goes, writing about music is like dancing about architecture. Well, reading about music wasn’t too fun, either. So reading Spin was a fairly listless experience: you could see the bands, but you couldn’t hear them. However, on Pitchfork — right now — you can not only read criticism of indie rock, but you can actually listen to it, and see videos as well as photos from last night’s shows (not to mention that, if you like what you hear, you can click on the album cover and buy the CD or even access the digital files to the entire record, instantly). But for Husni, he’s just hooked on a feeling: “There’s still a reason for that tactile feeling of holding something in your hand and having something you’re proud of.” But is he proud of the physical item or its content? Would Husni feel just as proud holding Us Weekly or People? Or would he rather read The Economist online?

Mediashift: ‘Mr. Magazine’ Believes We’ll Always Crave Ink on Paper