Everyone everywhere (I never leave New York) is talking about the death of print media. For framework, let's start out with a selection from a Momus entry from earlier this week:
All is not well in the world of periodical print media. Paper magazines and newspapers are dying, replaced by the activity you're engaged in right now -- reading content free off a computer screen. The big picture is of slow decline -- the New Yorker reported last year that since 1990, "a quarter of all American newspaper jobs have disappeared... the dwindling number of Americans who buy and read a daily paper are spending less time with it; the average is down to less than fifteen hours a month. Only nineteen per cent of Americans between the ages of eighteen and thirty-four claim even to look at a daily newspaper. The average age of the American newspaper reader is fifty-five and rising." But the short-term picture, as of early 2009, is of a sudden, precipitous decline in titles and jobs. It looks like a cull, the beginning of a rapid end.What will be missed when print media dies? Well, for starters, something to hold. The fetish of print material seems comfortable just where it is for the foreseeable future. We must feed the fetish! As someone who spends all day switching back-and-forth between print (books, magazines, papers) and music, I find it notable that my book purchases have skyrocketed in the past few years while music buys are virtually non-existent. I'll always support my favorite musical artists by attending a gig, but find most readings boring. Ultimately, it comes down to holding the page, the crucial typography choices, the elegance of great photography on a page, the spirit of writers when paid something close to a living wage, the scientific eyes of good editors.
Conversely - and as Momus points out - the downward slide has been happening for awhile. In this time, the relative quality of print publications has plummeted. There will always be niche outlets that are perfect for outsider ideas and solutions, but there used to be more of those nearing the surface. Don't get me started on the true zine and alt-newspaper scene, which has been online for awhile, but still lacks something of the sloppy artifact quality that made the originals so special. Check out the oft-discussed Fuck You: A Magazine For The Arts, for example. Even formerly great papers like The Village Voice have become simulated shells of their former selves. Like the "hipster movement," the "American Left" defined, created, sold and regurgitated by marketers. The independent streak is not only gone; it's discouraged.
Even the NYTimes is getting in on the action. In a recent interactive feature called Mostly Gloom For Glossies, users can play around with metrics and corresponding cover titles to see just how fast the industry is plummeting.
It's an epidemic that goes WAY bigger than the arts, but it's exactly those sorts of jobs and projects - the creative ones - that are forgotten and destroyed in the midst of tough economic times. While FDR allocated money for WPA arts projects and provided crucial support for creative enterprise, Obama doesn't seem interested in a repeat. Not that he's said no, it's just never been discussed in any public forum that I can find.
So, how do we survive? Endowments could be an interesting solution. This has been discussed for newspapers, but what about funds for counterculture institutions? There must still be philanthropists. I'd like to imagine a few of them are sympathetic. For them, a relatively meager trust could hold up these publications. It would keep speech free. It would contribute to a more open-minded culture. It would allow our vital outlets to experiment without fear of immediate failure. (Leeway is necessary for any artist or project to actually succeed.) It's also still capitalist! Those who don't innovate wouldn't survive. Those with appealing ideas could live to fight another day.
