More On Newspapers

I think it's safe to say that we've hit the tipping point when it comes to thinking about the future of the printed word, whether books, newspapers, whatever. (And in the past week, the chatter has also, and rather suddenly, shifted to visual media as well.)

Anyway, links to a collection of recent pieces. Some are now about a week old (positively dinosaurish in blog-time), but . . . . Major piece in last week's Time magazine. Much better (more thoughtful) than I expected.

In response to that piece, an excellent essay at Newspaper Death Watch.

And this in response to the idea of "micropayments."

Thoughtful (albeit somber) observations for Robert Stein at Connecting.The.Dots.

In today's New York Times, this collection of short essays from the most mainstream of the mainstream.

As for visual media, it's worth reading this from last Sunday's Times, and this in today's Wall Street Journal

. What I find odd about those last two reports are their inherent contradications: The Times piece argues that television is in great shape; the Journal piece says, yikes!, the TV network sky/system are falling. What I think the Times writer misses completely is this: he argues that modern humans simply prefer visuals and "non-visuals," by which I gather he means words, are doomed.

But I don't know about that. I don't think he's taking into account WHY so many of us turn to "watching" images (television, movies, etc.) I can't speak for anyone else, but at the end of the day, I turn to visuals because I've spent the entire.damn.day. reading words (and writing them) and I can't bear the idea of doing it anymore.

So I "watch" something. (And I don't "watch television," meaning clicking around randomly, so much as I use the object in our house as a device for watching stuff that I choose.)