Well, those crazy sci-fi days may finally be upon us. Not so much out
of the spirit of innovation as the stench of desperation. Newspapers
are hemorrhaging money and we may very well be witnessing the death of
an institution here. The newspaper has long been our chief bulwark
against government malfeasance via investigative journalism. For the
most practical of reasons, too. For years, the newspaper was among the
most profitable models avaialble. Big city dailies generated insane profit
margins, which could be used to subsidize “altruistic” advocacy
journalism. Only now, with real print reporting ceding territory to online information as ubiquitous as it is dubious, are we coming to realize how valuable that variety of professional journalism really is. Anyway. I could go on and on. I fear for the Republic, friends. Which is why I maintain a series of secure undisclosed residences worldwide.
All of which is my extremely roundabout way of recommending this recent and excellent article from Fortune magazine. Author Michael Copeland drills down through the emerging generation of “e-paper” initiatives, with an eye toward hard-nosed business realities. The article suggests there may be a happier alternative, in which e-paper solutions (like Amazon’s Kindle reader) preserve the traditional distribution and revenue models of print, minus all that expensive ink and paper.
Let’s hope so.
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