The I-Time Media Observer

Steve Outing’s Last Stop The Presses! Column

Steve Outing wrote the Stop The Presses! column at Editor & Publisher for nearly 15-years. But since the 108-year old publication is set to close in January 2010, he may have penned his last column there, “if E&P -- the magazine and the Web site -- disappears from view.”

“…it feels weird to have the final one published,” he writes at his personal blog at Steve Outing. Com.” See “Farewell, E&P: The last of my 14-1/2 years of columns.”

“But it’s online, “Goodbye, for Now: Looking Forward,” he adds. (My editors rejected my apparently too-controversial suggested headline: “Stop a Lot of the Presses! (Farewell, E&P).”

Outing said “Back when I started, I couldn't possibly have guessed that:
1. I'd continue to write this column for that long.
2. The newspaper industry would fail to benefit from the Internet, and bequeath opportunities to eager entrepreneurs who did capitalize, big time, at the expense of newspapers.”

It’s a thoughtful and insightful column. I recommend it.

Technorati Tags: Stop The Presses!,Steve Outing,Editor & Publisher

How Will Magazines Fare in 2010?

Magazines “most likely” will not be among publications that “will be lifted with the rising tide in spending” predicts over Media Life’s Louisa Ada Seltzer. See “Outlook for magazines in 2010: Grimmer.” According to Setlzer:

... 2010 could be a worse year than 2009 in some ways. More titles will fold, and probably bigger titles. Others will cut back circulation and frequencies while raising newsstand and subscription prices in an attempt to reduce losses, but the losses will continue.

Seltzer said, “We will see more efforts to shift into digital publishing by means of mobile apps and the like, and publishers will step up belated efforts to expand onto the internet, but whatever successes they see will fall well short of making up for their losses on their print publications.” 

Technorati Tags: Magazines in 2010,Media Life,Louisaa Ada Selzer

The Future of Magazines

Susan Krashinsky at Globe and Mail Update analyzes the future of magazines in the United States and Canada. If you’re interested in reading it, see “The future of the magazine.”

Technorati Tags: U.S. & Canadian Magazines,Future of Magazines,Susan Krashinsky

The Zine Publishers

The New York Post’s Marisa Meltzer reports that “Zines are making a comeback. Zines are homemade magazines, usually cut and pasted and sold in small print runs,” she writes in a November 29, 2009 post. “They’re currently thriving in New York, following this summer’s Zine Fest in Brooklyn [New York] and as a prominent element in the Younger Than Jesus show at the New Museum earlier this year.”

I’d think blogging would be easier and the publishers would reach a wider audience. But perhaps that’s not what they want and that’s ok.

If you want to read more, please see “Zine scenes: Diehards refuse to blog.

Technorati Tags: Zine Publishers,Marisa Meltzer

VQR Revisits Mumbai Massacre

If you are in the mood to read a riveting account of the horrific November 26-29, 2008, terror attacks in Mumbai, India, that played out in graphic detail on television sets around the world, then I recommend the four-part report freelance multimedia journalist Jason Motlagh prepared for the Virginia Quarterly Review (VQR).

Part one of the series is called “Sixty Hours of Terror: Ten Gunmen, Ten Minutes” and was published on November 16, 2009. Part two is headlined “Sixty Hours of Terror: “It’s Do or Die” and was published on November 17, 2009. Part three was published on November 18, 2009, and is headlined “Sixty Hours of Terror: “No Hostages Should Remain Alive”. Part four, published on November 19, 2009, is headlined “Sixty Hours of Terror: “By the Grace of Allah”.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles Times reporter Carolyn Kellog has as great article on why VQR decided to publish about 20,000 words on the tragedy, that resulted in the deaths of 163 people and the wounding of about 300. “See “Why a literary journal returned to the 2008 Mumbai attacks.”

Technorati Tags: 2008 Mumbai Attacks,Virginia Quarterly Review,Jason Motlagh,Sixty Hours of Terror