Friday, May 13th, 2011

Friday infographic: the death of print

Via Get Satisfaction comes this nice graphic of the relentless decline of print media. Well, when was the last time you bought a newspaper?  

Thursday, March 17th, 2011

Local free magazine of the day – Retired & living in Swindon

Found on the free magazine rack in Morrisons in Bath – an example of how the magazine industry is fighting back against the slew of sub-standard free online content. Basically, by producing a slew of sub-standard free printed content. At first glance, Retired – & living in Swindon looks as if it is produced by someone who […]

Friday, January 14th, 2011

Making predictions is hard – especially about the future of media

For those who haven’t seen it, here’s a curious item – an alarmist video about the future of media (in 2014) made (or at least uploaded to YouTube) in the far-off days of 2007. The general thrust is familiar – software-driven news aggregation and user-generated content have combined to drive “the press as you know […]

Thursday, August 12th, 2010

Must be a slow news day today…

Entertainment headline on Yahoo News: Mitch Winehouse has gallstones (Though, to be honest, I’m more intrigued by the news that “Paris Hilton is being sued for allegedly wearing someone else’s hair.” What is the world coming to?)

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

Personnel Today goes online only

Via @KarlSchneider comes the news that venerable HR/personnel trade publication Personnel Today is to ditch its print edition. As a result, 12 print jobs are to go – though in part compensation there will be four – count them – new online positions. This is a trend we’ll see much more of, especially in the […]

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

US government agency hopes to assign copyright to events

Well – sort of, if this “staff discussion draft” of “Potential Policy Recommendations to Support the Reinvention of Journalism” from the US Federal Trade Commission is anything to go by. Among the bullet points: “Hot news” Protection of Facts ie: if you report on something first, you have copyright over the event! That’s just fantastic, and […]

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

Missing the point about e-books

Woman in Black author Susan Hill spectacularly misses the point about e-books in this piece from the Spectator. On the way, she does make some insightful observations about the way that bookshops are facing up to the threat posed by internet sales and digital distribution. In fact, small, independent bookshops may be better placed to […]

Friday, December 11th, 2009

Evidence that Twitter is really for journalists

The sad news that venerable journalism industry magazine Editor & Publisher is to close apparently reached fourth place in Twitter’s trending topics list yesterday. Which seems to confirm my theory that it’s journalists who are all over Twitter like flies on a dead dog. According to the E&P web site: The name “Editor & Publisher” […]

Friday, December 11th, 2009

Signs of the times #1: Lobster goes online only

Just discovered via Taking Out The Trash – venerable “journal of parapolitics” Lobster has moved to online only distribution. I subscribed to Lobster for several years back in the 1990s. I often found it hard going (there’s only so much I can ever want to know about the Bilderberg Group). But the whole microwaves and […]

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

"Dinosaur rages against approaching asteroid"

I loved this comment on Tim Luckhurst’s recent journalism-is-so-up-itself-it-believes-it’s-the-cornerstone-of-democracy opinion piece on the Guardian web site. “Dinosaur rages against approaching asteroid. Blog at 11.” There’s almost nothing else to say. But what the hell. One problem with the Luckhurst analysis is that he recognises the economic drivers that created the modern newspaper, but then tries […]