Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

The Los Angeles Times recently announced that they will cease publication of the standalone Sunday book review section. As further fallout from this decision, a number of editors will lose their jobs. This is of course bad news, but I also think it needs to be kept in perspective. For instance, on the website LA Observed, four former editors of the LA Times book review have an essay that discusses the situation (LA Observed calls the essay a “protest” but I always envision a protest as involving marching and signs, or at the very least a pickup truck, generator, and one of those creepy inflatable union rats). “The dismantling of the Sunday Book Review section and the migration of a few surviving reviews to the Sunday Calendar section,” write the four editors, “represents a historic retreat from the large ambitions which accompanied the birth of the section.” While I’m sure that there will be plenty of Angeleno bibliophiles who will miss the book review section, I’m not sure its disappearance constitutes a “historic retreat.” George Washington and his army’s various escapes from the British in 1776, now that was retreat. This is just a business decision based on the undeniable facts of readership, circulation, etc.

In the essay, the editors also frame the decision to kill the book review section, but keep the popular Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, as hypocritical:

…since its founding in 1996, the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books has attracted upwards of 140,000 people to the UCLA campus from all walks of life throughout Southern California. Four hundred writers from all over America typically participate. The written word is celebrated. It is the most significant civic event undertaken by the Los Angeles Times to deepen literacy and to strengthen the bond between its news coverage and its far-flung community of readers. But without the Book Review itself, the book festival will be a hollow joke.

I think that saying that the festival will be either hollow or a joke without the book review is itself kind of a joke. If anything, I see much more worth in the festival than the book review section. At the festival, people can meet writers, and interact with other readers and booklovers within their community. This seems to me much more vital and real than reading what someone like Walter Kirn thinks of someone like Michael Chabon. If anything, the loss of the book review now makes the festival more important, not less. Or rather, it makes the festival much more practical. Because book reviews are too often about critics, and festivals are all about people. After all, I’d take Woodstock over Rolling Stone any day.

In the recent edition of The Nation, Eric Alterman has a story entitled “I Read the News Today…Oh Boy.” The thrust of Alterman’s story is that newspapers are in serious decline, and the newspaper industry can’t figure out a way to stop the bleeding.

Here’s how he sums it up:

The dearth of decent ideas designed to save newspapers–or reinvent them for the digital age in ways that preserve their crucial democratic functions–is curious and depressing. It’s curious because some of the smartest, most ambitious and most civic-minded people in America are deeply engaged with the problem. It is depressing because the only ones with the self-confidence to undertake radical measures appear to be completely off their respective rockers.

Alterman then goes on to list a bunch of ideas that various newspaper editors have come up with to get more people reading newspapers, including giving copies away to college kids (but even this doesn’t work since college kids have better things to do than read newspapers, even free ones).

In the end, Alterman admits that — even though the stakes are sky-high — that even he can’t come up with any good ideas for how to save newspapers:

I don’t have a better idea, except to repeat, again, the following: the loss of daily newspapers is a significant threat to the future of our democracy. It is far too important to be left in the hands of a bunch of clueless media moguls and their “chief innovation officers.”

Alterman here seems to be paraphrasing Clemenceau’s famous phrase “War’s too important to be left to the generals” (with Alterman’s version being, I guess, “Newspapers are too important to be left to the moguls”). And yet, in this case, the real problem is how important Alterman is making newspapers. I mean, is he serious when we says that “the loss of daily newspapers is a significant threat to the future of our democracy”? Because that is ridiculous.

Democracy does not rely on newspapers. Democracy relies on honest journalism and reporting (or, at the very least, freedom of the press, which is an idea all its own). Because if the content that appears on Fox News were distributed via a newspaper instead of a cable channel, and it was the only newspaper we had, it would surely be a bad thing for our democracy.

Anyway, Alterman’s forgetting the first real tenet of the democracy he seems so intent on saving: this is a government for the people, by the people. And the people, if they choose an alternate way of getting their news and information (such as websites and blogs) will have made their decision. The point shouldn’t be to just shove a newspaper into someone’s hand, but rather to instill in that person the curiosity to find out the truth in the first place.

The website of The Los Angeles Times recently launched a collaborative writing project entitled Birds of Paradise. This is going to be a sort of “wiki novel,” with professional writer Steve Lopez writing the first chapter but — as the Times’ website states — “It will now be up to readers to write the next chapter and the next and so on.” This is a pretty interesting idea, and I’ll be curious to read the results. Of course, Penguin UK already dabbled with this a few years ago with their own wiki-novel A Million Penguins. And while the results in that case may not have been stellar in terms of literary value, the experience showed how just how ready and willing readers are to be writers. In an age of Youtube and Wikipedia, more and more people aren’t content to just sit and consume content; they also want to play a part in creating it.

What I also find interesting about Birds of Paradise is that, a 150 years ago, Dickens had his classic works serialized in newspapers (as did many other writers at the time). And so it’s now fascinating to see, on the website of a newspaper, novelistic serialization again appearing. Of course, the difference this time is that the readers of the newspapers are now writing the book, rather than a professional writer. The Internet, the rise of user-generated content, and the trend of “crowdsourcing” has shown that we’re all professionals now. Or rather, the idea of “amateur” and “professional” is fast flying out the window.

Via Gawker, Real Simple’s website — as part of a feature entitled “101 New Uses for Everyday Things” — has a top ten list of things that newspapers can be used for (hint: reading is not one of them).

Here’s the list:

1. Deodorize food containers. Stuff a balled-up piece of newspaper into a lunch box or thermos, seal it, and let sit overnight.

2. Ripen tomatoes. Wrap them individually and leave them out at room temperature.

3. Pack delicate items.Wrap frames and figurines with several pieces of newspaper, then crumple the remaining sections to fill extra space in the box.

4. Wipe away tough streaks on glass. Use newspaper with cleaning fluid to clean mirrors and windows.

5. Preserve antique glass. Some older frames have finishes on the glass that can be damaged by cleaning solutions. Remove smudges by rubbing with newspaper dipped in a solution of one part white vinegar and one part warm water. Let air-dry.

6. Dry shoes. Place crumpled paper in them overnight.

7. Wrap gifts. Use the comics to wrap a child’s birthday gift, or try the wedding announcements for an engagement gift.

8. Create a home for slushy snow boots. During the winter, keep a pile of newspaper near the entryway. When your little snowmen and -women come home, they can toss their winter wear onto the newspaper instead of creating puddles on the floor.

9. Prepare a garden. In the fall, mow a patch of lawn to make room for a dedicated bed. Cover it with four layers of newspaper, then a four-inch layer of shredded leaves or bark mulch. Hose it down. Come spring, the compost blanket will have smothered the grass roots, and the bed will be primed for planting.

10. Keep the refrigerator vegetable drawer dry and free of smells. Line the bottom with newspaper.

In Tuesday’s edition of The New York Times, Kevin J. Martin, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, had an opinion piece entitled “The Daily Show.” And no, the essay’s not about Jon Stewart’s satirical talk show. Rather it is yet another plea for the preservation of newspapers (which just happens to appear in — wait for it — a newspaper; that being said, I found it and read it online). Martin begins by painting the usual bleak picture of past and recent developments, beginning with, “In many towns and cities, the newspaper is an endangered species. At least 300 daily papers have stopped publishing over the past 30 years. Those newspapers that have survived are struggling financially. Newspaper circulation has declined steadily for more than 10 years. Average daily circulation is down 2.6 percent in the last six months alone.” Martin then concedes that newspapers are seen as not only old-fashioned, but seem increasingly anachronistic, stating that “nearly one-third of all Americans regularly receive news through the Internet.”

But Martin — as have many others — sees all of this as a bad thing and not a good thing (presumably he’s going into Lorax mode here and speaking for the newspapers, for the newspapers — like the trees they used to be — have no tongue). For instance, here are the stakes as he sees them:

If we don’t act to improve the health of the newspaper industry, we will see newspapers wither and die. Without newspapers, we would be less informed about our communities and have fewer outlets for the expression of independent thinking and a diversity of viewpoints. The challenge is to restore the viability of newspapers while preserving the core values of a diversity of voices and a commitment to localism in the media marketplace.

Martin’s thesis in the above is ridiculous; he seems to put all newspapers on equal moral and intellectual ground. Indeed, he seems to state that any old newspaper is a good thing. What about tabloids like The New York Post? I would argue that the Internet keeps us just as, if not more, informed about our communities. For instance, I live in Hoboken, and the website Hoboken 411 is always a great source of information for what’s happening in our small town. When there was a water main break a couple of months ago, this website gave us minute-by-minute coverage — supplied by people who lived in the city — of who had water and where they had it. By the time any local newspapers got around to reporting the incident (on either their website or their print edition), the water main problem had been fixed.

And in terms of newspapers being an “outlet for the expression of independent thinking and a diversity of viewpoints,” this is also ridiculous. The blogosphere — in just the past couple of years — has done more for “independent thinking” than newspapers have done in the last hundred years. Because, in reality, the “diversity of viewpoints” you get in The New York Times is strictly limited to the writers the Times has on the payroll (and of course the occasional contributor, such as Martin). So what Martin’s saying isn’t too far removed from those at the NBCC who think that the only ones who can deliver criticism are critics. And what Martin really means when he writes about a “diversity of viewpoints” is that we have a choice between Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd, Thomas Friedman or Paul Krugman. Talk about diversity!

But of course, since Martin is chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, his piece really isn’t about newspapers but is instead more about how certain laws pertaining to media ownership should be changed. This is Martin’s greatest miscalculation of them all; he still thinks that news and information is in the hands of the big media providers. Has he seen Digg or Reddit? Does he know that a million friends on Myspace can turn into a show on MTV, or a Youtube rant about Britney Spears can turn into a development deal? The days when the FCC could mandate change by rearranging the flow of the mainstream media is long past; because while the big guys fiddle with the aqueducts up in the air, the rest of us are rushing by in a raging river down below.

Over the weekend, in the “Books of Style” section (nestled within the overall Sunday Styles section) of the New York Times, Print is Dead was featured alongside Pierre Bayard’s recently published How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read (which was originally published in French). The article was titled “Beyond the Cover, Who’s to Know,” and it starts off talking about Bayard’s book, which is about how people don’t need to read books in their entirety to get their meaning. The article then segues to my book, which more or less states that you don’t need to read the physical format of books in order to gain meaningful access to the content inside.

Here’s a snippet of the article:

“Today’s kids are not going to want to pick up a big book and spend hours in a corner silently, passively reading,” Mr. Gomez warns. Instead, he says, “They’re going to ditch the hardback and head over to Facebook.” Why shouldn’t the “boring bits” of “The Mill on the Floss” be expunged? he asks. Why don’t savvy publishers expand their market by “remixing Middlemarch and Middlesex?” Why can’t Dickens be as fun as World of Warcraft? And why would anyone write a travel memoir anymore, when “Google Earth has inventoried nearly every backyard on the planet?” (I’d pursue this further, but it’s time to update my Facebook status.)

To read the entire thing, click here.

A few weeks ago I read an essay on the Poynter Institute’s website by Roy Peter Clark entitled “Your Duty to Read the Paper.” Clark’s essay is basically a misdirected manifesto wherein he pledges to read newspapers everyday, and tries to rally others around the same idea. His argument is filled with all kinds of defensive declarations, such as “The future of journalism, not just newspapers, depends upon such loyalty [to read newspapers everyday]. And now I pose this challenge to you: It is your duty as a journalist and a citizen to read the newspaper — emphasis on paper, not pixels.”

This is a completely ridiculous notion. The future of journalism depends first and foremost on meeting the needs of readers. After this comes the need for better business models and for newsgathering organizations to embrace change and find a way to coexist with our digital age. But Clark’s blinded by the worthiness of his profession’s glorious past, writing that, “I owe it to hard-working journalists everywhere — and to the future of journalism — to read them. It’s no longer a choice. It’s a duty.” He ends his essay by saying, “So join me, even you young whipper-snappers. Read the paper. Hold it in your hand. Take it to the john. Just read it.”

This is completely the wrong approach to take. I mean, to force print down people’s throats as if it’s a vegetable they don’t want to eat is just about the worst strategy I’ve ever heard of. (Believe me, when I was a kid I hated lima beans, and my mom insisted I eat them; I dutifully shoved them down my prepubescent gullet, but as an adult I never touch them). So to try and guilt people to read print implies that to do so is a sacrifice; worse, that’s it’s a kind of punishment. It turns reading newspapers into a kind of penance for a digital life, a modern-day flogging in the form of papercuts and inky fingerprints.

Just because something’s on paper doesn’t make it divine; it doesn’t even make it good. But Clark’s just interested in cozying up with newspapers in his breakfast nook, feeling all warm and sanctimonious. Meanwhile, I’ll be reading The New York Times on my laptop, and doing just fine.

Farhad Manjoo, writing a column on the Machinist section of Salon, has an essay today entitled “Why I miss the dead-tree newspaper.” In the essay Manjoo laments the fact that, even though he realizes digital reading is the wave of the future and he has willingly given up his subscription to the daily edition of The New York Times, it’s just not the same. Manjoo writes, “Though I will never go back [to newsprint], more and more, these days, I find myself longing for the paper and the unique, perhaps irreplaceable role it played in shaping how I understood the news of the day.”

Manjoo goes on, stuffing his “paean to an antiquated technology” with a number of examples and reasons why he continues to long for newsprint in a digital world. And while I don’t agree with all of Manjoo’s reasons of why he misses print (for instance, he states that “The newspaper, first and chiefly, is easy to skim”; I myself find locating stories in a newspaper is like rifling through a dictionary to find a word), I certainly see his overall point.

Print is indeed a really great thing. People have produced and consumed it for centuries. In fact, nobody said a transition from print to digital would be easy. Therefore Manjoo’s reaction is natural and good. People love newsprint the same way they love books and magazines. But the fact that people will and do miss print has nothing to do with the efficacy of digital reading (not to mention to the inevitability of digital reading). It also doesn’t mean people are going to go down with the ship, and cling to their “antiquated technology” just because they can’t stand to live life without it.

In the end, Manjoo comes to terms with his loss, reflecting that digital reading is at the dawn of its evolution while newsprint is receding into the sunset: “The online newspaper is an infant; in time designers and engineers will surely find a way to give us a perfectly skimmable electronic broadsheet. Until then, there’s a lot I’ll miss — and mourn.” So not only is Manjoo stating that print is dead, but he’s been to the funeral and is now getting on with his (electronic) life.

Richard Perez-Pena, writing this week in The New York Times, had an article entitled “Why Big Newspapers Applaud Some Declines in Circulation.” The story, as you can probably tell by the headline, is about how some large newspapers actually don’t mind that their circulation is dropping; indeed, they’re cheering about it.

“As the newspaper industry bemoans falling circulation, major papers around the country have a surprising attitude toward a lot of potential readers: Don’t bother,” writes Perez-Pena. “The big American newspapers sell about 10 percent fewer copies than they did in 2000, and while the migration of readers to the Web is usually blamed for that decline, much of it has been intentional. Driven by marketing and delivery costs and pressure from advertisers, many papers have decided certain readers are not worth the expense involved in finding, serving and keeping them.”

Perez-Pena documents a number of big city newpapers that have cut down on marketing costs because the kind of reader (or even subscriber) that they get via the traditional marketing methods either won’t renew their subscription, or else the swollen circulation numbers won’t be attractive to advertisers who — in a Google world — want more targeted advertising. In this respect, the newspapers are trying to beat the Internet at its own game.

In terms of other aspects of online competition, the papers are just plain giving up. Since most people get their news online, and since the Internet obviously shatters geographic boundaries, newspapers have chosen to raise the drawbridge and cater to only a hyper-local clientele. Writes Perez-Pena: “Some large papers have made conscious decisions to limit their geographic range. The most striking recent example is The Dallas Morning News. Last year, it stopped distribution outside a 200-mile radius, and weekday circulation tumbled 15 percent to a little over 400,000.”

All of which is fascinating since, in most cases print does not go gentle into that good night, but here print is willingly running itself off a cliff. And why? Because they know there’s an inflatable mattress down below named the Internet, and that any readers of the print edition they might lose they stand a pretty good chance of winning back via their websites. As said Jim Moroney, the publisher and chief executive of The Dallas Morning News puts it, “I have no regrets. The people who really want to read The Dallas Morning News can still get it online.” Of course, this is risky; on the way to the Dallas Morning News website the user may stop by YouTube or MySpace, and never make it to the newspaper’s site. After a couple of days of this, they’re getting their news from Digg and the Dallas Morning News, to them, is yesterday’s news.

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.