Scott Donaton, publisher of AdAge, has a great column describing the possibility of Dow Jones killing the print edition of The Wall Street Journal. Of course, this is tied to the larger theme of the newspaper business:
It’s still surprisingly difficult to get traditional media executives to admit this. But their resistance seems based on an emotional attachment to ink on paper, a deeply held — if largely indefensible — sense that a newspaper’s soul is inextricably linked to its format.
Which is nonsense. Scary as they are, some things must be confronted, including our overly romanticized notions of what a newspaper is.
There funny thing about this story is that I received the headline and summary via RSS, then clicked on the full story on the Web site. At the top of the page was a banner ad from the Newspaper Assocation of America (NAA), touting newspapers in extreme antiquitated style. See for your self below, in case you are not served the same ad when visiting the page. Click on the image for higher-res.
What is AdAge going to do with its print Tabloid? I stopped suscribing to that a year ago. I love their RSS news feeds and podcasts. I love that several of their reporters and columnists are now blogging. Bob Garfield’s decision to write his new book, Listenomics, on his blog also is very cool.