Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

The other day, while researching restaurants on the New York City Search website, I noticed a trio of strange looking heads looming in a banner ad at the top of the page. When I looked closer, I saw that it was an ad for the Newspaper Association of America. I’ve been aware of the NAA for a while, and have blogged in the past about their efforts to convince advertisers that print (especially newsprint) is not dead. So, curious, I clicked on the ad and was brought to the NAA website. Once there I was presented with a ghastly graphic of a newspaper-reading hydra (pictured above). Once I recovered from the initial shock, I then tried to figure out what this ugly illustration meant, and couldn’t really figure it out.

The Newspaper Association of America’s tagline is “Newspaper. The multi-medium,” so I suppose the three-heads could come out of the fact that the newspaper’s a “multi-medium.” But if that’s the case, shouldn’t the paper be doing three things, instead of the human? (Also, it seems odd that the three heads seem unrelated; in fact, one of them appears to be Ed Grimley.)

What’s also silly is that the headline of the newspaper (cleverly titled The Newspaper, by the way) screams “Information age is here!!” Because, really, most newspapers worth their weight in pulp love to load their banner headlines with multiple exclamation points (even the end of the second World War only warranted one). What I think the headline should really be is “World Attacked by Three-Headed Four-Armed Mutants Who Like to Read Newspapers.”

The copy in the ad mentioned that, while people never agree on anything, they can at least agree that newspapers are a great thing. And since two of the creature’s four hands seem to be trying to make a point, I guess the graphic implies that, while the various personalities pictured don’t agree on a point of view, they’re at least agreeing to read a newspaper. But even that idea doesn’t make much sense. Besides, wouldn’t the NAA want each of the these heads to have their own paper? (It would triple sales!) Anyway, this just feels like another misguided attempt by the newspaper industry to remain relevant in a digital world.