Will Apple's new gadget save newspapers and magazines?

Wednesday will be a big day for tech fans -- and could be a big day for the publishing industry as well. After lots of fanfare and speculation, Apple will announce a new portable device that will resemble an electronic tablet -- a perfect device, many believe, for electronic publishing. If true, it would be an important aid to the publishing world's move to start charging for content, as The New York Times has announced it will do next year.


So you might want to check the news Wednesday, and follow-up installments, to see what this gadget, and others like the Kindle and Nook, might mean to the publishing world.


A disclosure: I'm a Mac fan and optimistic that its demonstrated track record for exciting innovation could give a boost to efforts to charge for online content. This will be an evolution; change will not come easily or quickly -- but it must come for the viability of this crucial industry.


Here's an insightful piece in Macworld. Note the author's distinction between "commodity news" -- the routine stuff that every news outlet has, and nobody can really charge for -- and enterprise, investigative and in-depth pieces, such as the news feature and narrative forms we're studying in this class.


Here's another take, from The New York Times, making many of the same points, but also adding the cautionary note that Apple would be an intermediary that publishers might want to avoid. The rub: Apple will want its slice of the profits, and might extract too high a cost. Everything at this point, once again, is speculative.


Stay tuned.


Can you see yourself subscribing to a publication -- or buying piecemeal editorial content -- via a service such as iTunes? Does this seem promising to you?

Should you be able to read newspapers online free?

As we've discussed in class, the future viability of the newspaper industry is in some doubt unless newspapers can charge for content online -- and readers will be willing to pay. Many print publications jumped on the Internet bandwagon more than a decade ago, eager to establish their online presence, sort of an "If you build it, they will come," approach. Readers came in droves, but often balk when papers try to charge for content.


As a consequence, most newspapers and many magazines give away content online that print subscribers and advertisers pay for. Online advertising revenues for most publications are a fraction of the revenues brought in by print advertising. Thus, many papers have more readers than ever before, but a problematic revenue base. That makes economic sustainability a real challenge.


How long can online readers reasonably expect to pay nothing for information that is costly to gather, write, edit? Think for a moment what it costs to pay for bureaus in places like Baghdad, Kabul, London, Paris -- even St. Paul.

The sketch assignment

The aim of the sketch is to allow the reader to enter, briefly, the world created by the writer. It can be a bit whimsical or deadly serious, depending upon the situation and the writer's point of view. It's really a feature form, but the best sketches firmly invoke the here and now, and touch at least obliquely on a wider issue, or the moment -- an event, appearance, trend, etc. Those that don't have immediacy as a hook must evoke the universal, capturing human interest. The very best combine a sense of immediacy with universality.

Sound a bit too lofty? Sorry. Shoot for capturing mood and moment.

This class is working on very diverse sketch subjects, so it's hard to generalize, but I'll offer a few pointers that I hope will be helpful as you work on your first drafts:

This article is too long!

Journalist and commentator Michael Kinsley wrote a provocative essay in the current issue of The Atlantic making the case that too many newspaper articles are too long.

As readers' attention spans have shortened, and as newspapers literally have shrunk to save paper, article lengths at most newspapers, including The Forum, have gotten significantly shorter. But article lengths at major metro papers, including The New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, remain comparatively long, especially for analytical pieces.