print-is-dead

New York Times Accidentally Tells 8 Million Readers Their Subscriptions Are Canceled

By Phil Villarreal on December 29, 2011 9:15 AM 15 Comments

Millions of people who had given their email addresses to The New York Times were incorrectly told Wednesday morning that they had canceled their subscriptions. The accidental email to 8 million readers caused confusion, leaving subscribers scrambling to see what was wrong with their accounts while befuddling those who didn't subscribe. After initially declaring the email was a spam attack, the paper copped to the fact that an employee sent the email and apologized for the accident in a second mass email. More »

Another Video Game Magazine Dies An Agonizing Death

By Phil Villarreal on December 1, 2011 8:15 AM 55 Comments

Kids who tagged along with their parents on grocery store trips in the early 1990s just to spend the duration in the magazine aisle paging through GamePro magazine will have to kiss another piece of their childhoods goodbye. After abandoning the monthly format for a quarterly model this year, the magazine has ceased production entirely. Also, the website will shut down by Dec. 6. More »

sooner or later you're gonna have to sell it

23 More Newspapers Hoist Up Paywalls

By Phil Villarreal on August 16, 2011 9:30 AM 77 Comments

In a paradigm shift that will either help make newspapers more profitable or prove their dwindling relevance, 23 newspapers owned by MediaNews Group followed the lead of The Wall Street Journal and New York Times by shaking down would-be online freeloaders for a monthly fee. The program includes MediaNews's smaller papers, including the Daily Democrat (Woodland, Calif.), Sentinel & Enterprise (Fitchburg, Mass.) and Daily Times (Farmington, NM). More »

Writer Sells 1 Million Self-Published Kindle Books

By Phil Villarreal on June 22, 2011 9:45 AM 62 Comments

The publishing industry may be struggling, but you wouldn't know it from the success of some ebook writers, including one who has become the first self-published author to sell 1 million Kindle downloads. More »

don't call us we'll call you

California Kills Automatic Phone Book Delivery

By Phil Villarreal on June 17, 2011 9:15 AM 70 Comments

Add phone books to the growing list of things that will one day make you feel old for living in a time in which they existed. The California Public Utilities Commission approved Verizon's request that the residential white pages would no longer be delivered statewide automatically. Yellow Pages, and government and business listings will still be distributed. More »

(me and the sysop)

FCC: Lack Of Local Reporting Lets Government Run Wild Free Of Watchdogs

By Phil Villarreal on June 9, 2011 10:15 AM 47 Comments

Traditional media's trudge into the tar pits may benefit greedy local politicians who can get away with more chicanery when obsessive reporters aren't breathing down their necks. According to an FCC report, there's a major shortage of local news media ready to potentially hold local officials accountable for their actions. More »

DC Comics Suffers Midlife Crisis, Gets All Modern

By Phil Villarreal on June 1, 2011 8:00 AM 94 Comments

It seems that in the world of comic books, the equivalent of getting a sports car and a mistress when confronted with mortality is a wholesale shake-up that includes renumbered issues, new uniforms for its heroes and a focus on digital delivery. DC Comics, the home of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, is attempting to reinvent itself in the face of falling print sales before it's too late. More »

Amazon: Kindle Books Outselling Dead Tree Variety

By Phil Villarreal on May 20, 2011 11:15 AM 119 Comments

Piggybacking on last month's Association of American Publishers announcement that e-books had overtaken print book sales, Amazon announced that, in the U.S., 105 Kindle books were selling for every 100 copies of the hard stuff it moved. More »

Newspaper Chain Avoids Bankruptcy By Selling Junk Bonds

By Phil Villarreal on April 13, 2011 9:15 AM 13 Comments

Newspaper executives are forced to come up with increasingly clever maneuvers to stave off bankruptcy. Lee Enterprises, which owns the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, my daytime employer, the Arizona Daily Star, and several small-town papers will reportedly resort to selling off its debt as junk bonds in order to prevent vulture investors from swooping in and picking at its carcass. More »

Wired Invites You To Re-subscribe Before Sending Any Magazines

By Laura Northrup on April 5, 2011 12:15 PM 48 Comments

Aggressive subscription renewals are nothing new in the dying field of magazines. But reader Ben was a little surprised when the first thing he received as a new subscriber to Wired wasn't a welcome letter or a magazine. It was a solicitation to re-up for another year. More »

sooner or later you're gonna have to sell it

New York Times Will Make Another Go At Pay Wall Before Month's End

By Phil Villarreal on March 18, 2011 9:15 AM 63 Comments

After abandoning an earlier attempt at a pay wall in 2007, The New York Times will make another go of it March 28, introducing a metered system that will give readers access to material before charging them when they keep reading stories. More »

Internet Surpasses Print As News Source; TV Still Leads

By Phil Villarreal on March 16, 2011 9:15 AM 36 Comments

The most surprising thing about the Pew Project's State of the News Media study findings isn't that online news is more popular than print, it's that it took so long for the perceived reality of the past several years to come to fruition. As a result, newsrooms have shed workers as well as readers, operating with 30 percent less manpower than they did in 2001. More »

Dallas Morning News Trying To Get Freeloading Readers To Pay Up

By Phil Villarreal on January 5, 2011 9:45 AM 52 Comments

Pay walls haven't seen much success in the world of traditional media, but the Dallas Morning News is trying its hand at the brick and mortar. The newspaper will allow its print subscribers to view all content online, and will partition off some stories from readers without a $34 print or $17 monthly digital subscription. Digital-only subscriptions will allow readers to view content through browsers or via iPod or iPhone apps. More »

(funky_abstract)

I Like The Times, But Not Enough To Pay Double The Subscription Fee

By Phil Villarreal on November 2, 2010 1:30 PM 48 Comments

Newspaper workers like to think their news gathering skills keep readers interested in their product, but no matter how well they do their jobs, crummy billing and delivery execution drive readers away from the struggling industry. More »

Nonprofit At Work On Free Digital Science Textbook

By Phil Villarreal on October 21, 2010 9:15 AM 35 Comments

Billed as the first interactive, all-digital science textbook, Life on Earth will teach students about the birds, bees, flowers and trees — and do so for free. More »

Someone Bought Newsweek For $1, Probably Overpaid

By Phil Villarreal on October 8, 2010 9:30 AM 46 Comments

An audio equipment magnate dug into his pockets, fished out some loose pocket change and bought Newsweek in August for $1. We're not talking about a single issue at a news stand, but the entire magazine operation. More »

L.A. Times Replaces Front Page With Fake 'Law & Order' News; L.A. Times Readers Really Pissed

By Chris Morran on October 1, 2010 1:42 PM 57 Comments

Earlier this week, the L.A. Times ran a fake front page — chock full of stories intended to sell NBC's new L.A.-based Law & Order franchise — and guess what? Readers of the paper weren't exactly pleased with the bit of crass badvertising. More »

Reader's Digest Wants Me To Renew 4 Months Into a 2-Year Subscription

By Phil Villarreal on September 16, 2010 3:30 PM 69 Comments

As magazines continue to struggle, some are treating subscribers the way Tommy Boy does biscuits that represent Callahan brake pad sales contacts. Take Rick, who was good enough to pay upfront for two years of Reader's Digest, and now must field offers from the company to renew the four-month-old subscription: More »

times they are a-changin

New York Times Publisher Says Print Edition Will Eventually Fade Out

By Phil Villarreal on September 10, 2010 9:45 AM 50 Comments

It's easy to imagine most newspapers ceasing print editions, but surely stalwarts such as the New York Times will always stick around in physical form, if only to serve tradition, right? Wrong, says Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the New York Times chairman and publisher. More »

Paste Is God's Magazine Now

By Phil Villarreal on September 2, 2010 10:15 AM 55 Comments

When my dog, Goose, died last year, my then-2-year-old son rationalized "Goose is God's dog now." It seemed as positive a rationalization as possible to put on an untimely passing. So now I have to believe that, when headed to the crapper, God must be taking a rolled-up copy the beloved-but-obviously-not-beloved-enough-to-be-kept-alive Paste magazine with him. That's presuming Paste went to periodical heaven and not where George magazine ended up. More »

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